Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1911-Jan 1912)

132 THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE unattended, hoping that the kind fate which had permitted them to meet once would allow them to meet again. Arriving home, Dolores was at once entangled among difficulties. "He would not come," she declared. It was the only statement she would make to her father and to Juan. She calmly accepted the derision of others of the band who had doubted her ability to ensnare the sheriff, and she insisted that she had done her best. Then Pedro came and all was changed. Pedro, for once in his life, told the truth, and the result was as if a bombshell had exploded in their midst. Never had Dolores seen Juan more terrible in his anger. He threatened her with every kind of death and disaster. Even her own father dared not interfere in her behalf. "I'll fix you!" growled the chief, at the same time seizing the girl by the wrist and pulling her to a table. "Now you write a letter. You speak — you write the English. You write it now for your life." Dolores, now badly frightened, could but obey, so she wrote as Juan directed. She wrote to the sheriff of Guarez that she was in great trouble, and begged his assistance at once. Pedro delivered the letter, and it had the effect desired by its inventor. When next she saw Duncan he was a prisoner in the house of the bandits. "You did it," he exclaimed, when he saw her. "You — why, I'd have staked my life on you last night. When I got your letter, I couldn't come fast enough — f oo] that I was. ' ' And he wondered why Dolores burst into tears. "Me — the sheriff of Guarez — tricked by a girl! And to think that you, the idol of my dreams, are but a false, treacherous woman ! ' ' Confined by the bandits in a room on the second floor of the house in which they made their headquarters, Sheriff Duncan paced to and fro and ground his teeth, as he realized how powerless he was in the hands of his captors. He looked out of the window and measured the distance to the ground. Too far for a jump. Nothing in the room by which he could make a descent. He heard the lazy Mexican, supposed to be standing guard outside his door, sit down on the floor and roll a cigarette. Perhaps when he had smoked it he would fall asleep. The prisoner waited until the smoke of the cigarette ceased to come in around the crack of the door. Then he softly tried the latch. It was fastened securely. He was about to turn again to the window, when a slight sound at the door caught his attention. Some one was trying to unfasten it from without. He listened. The next moment he heard Dolores cry out. The guard had awakened. There was a rough struggle. Others came running. Broken sentences of Spanish caught his ears. The lariat? Why should she be trying to pass him a lariat since it was she who had entrapped him? Why should she be so ill-treated and beaten because of him? He could hear her cries and struggles as she was forced up the stairway to the room above his. Could it be that he had wronged her? Perhaps she had not written the letter — it might have been the work of one of the bandits ! Duncan looked again from the window. It was night of the darkest kind. Not a star gave its light. The house at last was still. Evidently, even the guard slumbered again. The captive turned back toward the door. Hark! A noise at the window! Some one was there. Before he could decide upon a course, there was a flutter of something white in front of the casement ; then the gradual appearance of a dark figure sliding down the ladder of white until the window-sill was reached. Then the swaying stopped. The person, whoever it was, was going no further. "Are you there?" The words were scarcely whispered, but Ralph heard. It was Dolores' voice. He would know it anywhere. He stepped nearer the window. "What do you want?" he asked in a low tone. There was still the lin