The afternoon dragged into evening, and the night came. Still Murray lay senseless, breathing heavily but evenly. The sun slipped out of sight under the western rim, and darkness clamped down until the stars shone.
Claire spread her blankets above the tiny shelter she had made for Murray, and lay with her face to the south and Two Palms. What time it was when she wakened, she did not know; she lay for a moment wondering why she had roused, then glanced toward Murray's shelter. In the starlight she could see that he had not moved. She could hear his breathing, as it had been. Then--her gaze leaped to the desert floor, where two moving stars were drawing close.
An automobile! Hope sprang within her, drew a quick, glad cry from her lips. She leaped up and arranged her dress with shaking fingers. Tom Lee was coming, then, was almost here!
Hurriedly she made shift to light a tiny blaze from the fragments of her fire, to guide the arrivals. As the car came into the valley below, the sound apprised her that it was a flivver, and she became certain that Tom Lee had come. The car threaded its way up the hillside, and ten feet from Murray's car, came to a halt. Its engine was not shut off, and its headlights held Claire in the center of this scene, lighting the place dimly, but efficiently.
Two dark figures leaped from the car and came toward her. A cry broke from Claire, and she drew back--not Tom Lee after all! Here was Piute Tomkins, and with him a stranger whom she did not know. But her fear vanished swiftly, and she choked down her disappointment.
"I'm _so_ glad you came!" she exclaimed. "Doctor Murray has been hurt--why, what's the matter?"
She halted, blankly astounded. The stranger and Piute both produced revolvers, and their manner was distinctly unfriendly. The stranger now flashed the badge of a sheriff; he was a keen-eyed man, bronzed and resolute.
"You're under arrest, Miss Lee," he said. "So is Doctor Murray. That him yonder?"
"Arrest?" faltered the girl, shrinking in amazement and fear.
"Yep, complicity," said Piute. "The doc had a lot of opium in his room, and morphine--and you're helpin' him in his getaway! This here is the sheriff--Hennesy sent him over a-flyin'----"