Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/181

Rh mesa the girl's vitality lowered. The mere thought of the drink she had refused tortured her. The pitiless sunrays smashed down, drying the tissues of her mouth, burning her exposed wrists. Her lips began to crack and her tongue to swell. Lack of food assailed her. Hope began to dwindle. She knew every swallow Hollister took of the liquor in his flask added fuel to the fire of his intentions. He seemed hardened against the stuff and the possibility of his collapse under its influence became remote. She concentrated every failing faculty in petition to her God, for a way of escape to open, even if it had to lead through the gate to death. She lost all sense of pain, of outward things, in the merciful hypnosis of prayer, maintaining her balance on the plodding horse automatically.

It was close to noon when his harsh chuckle and his words broke through the shell of her weariness. Her concentrated prayer had numbed her spirit and her body reacted. If God had listened, he had heard.

"Look ahead, pretty," jeered Hollister. Pretty' was what that fat Swedish pig called you, an' it suits you. There's where we're goin' to stay till mornin', you an' me."

She gazed under the rim of her hat with sun-scorched eyes at a rainbow dazzle of cliffs that lifted suddenly from the desert. But she was indifferent to their beauty, too exhausted to take in the details of the wonderful place. Knowing that here she must rally her forces, she tried to clear her jaded energies, finding a reserve of force that promised