Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/210

 removing Zang Whistler beyond power of protest, then neatly trapping her.

So Original Bill Blunt, the range inspector, had indeed sworn out a warrant against her as Zang had said he might; assault with intent to kill,—was that the way Zang had said it would read?

The girl leaped from bed and began groping. Her hands encountered a wall. Noiselessly she felt her way, hand over hand, along this wall. The stiff cambric of a window shade touched her fingers. She pulled one edge away from the window and looked out. A window, sure enough, framing lighter dark without by its sash. She could see lights in a house some distance away and the faint line of willows along a creek bed. Also, she noted there were no bars across her window.

Absence of bars did not shake her belief she was a prisoner. Evidently, Hilma reasoned, there was no provision for women prisoners in the jail, and the sheriff had locked her in this room temporarily, trusting to her innocence concerning his intention to hold her as sufficient assurance against escape.

The panic that gripped her slowly gave way to determination to escape while opportunity