This would show up the rotten state of affairs in Mariposa if nothing else did. It would make Alejo look a fool too. Of course he had warned her – there was that to say in his favour, but they were only about four or five hours’ ride from Jācara and he should have the power to keep such enemies of justice under control.

‘Yes, it might turn out quite a good thing,’ Skye decided. She began to plan to herself the very words in which she would inform the newspapers of what had happened to her. She remembered someone she knew on the New York Times and she would send him a telegram as soon as she was free.

She was not in the slightest afraid as they galloped on. The men obviously had no intention of harming her and although it might have been comforting to have her revolver bumping at her side, it could hardly be of much use against fourteen men, all of them armed.

On they went and Skye saw at last that they were making for the purple mountains, which had once seemed a long way off, but were now drawing nearer.

She made no effort to talk to her captors and they obviously had no intention of speaking to her.

On and on, the jingle of the harness an accompaniment to her thoughts.

But the mountains were further off than she had thought and, as she grew tired, even the beauty of the scenery and the feeling of adventure began to pall.

She was hot, hungry and thirsty. It was a long time since she had eaten a light luncheon on the yacht.

She wondered what Captain Maclean would do when she did not return. She supposed that he would make enquiries locally and then telegraph to Jimmy.

Skye licked the dust from her lips and pushed back the wet curls from her forehead. She was on the verge of demanding a rest when they slowed down from a quick trot to walk the horses up a mountainous path. It soon became only a track and they went in single file.

On and on, the dust rising in a cloud, the sun sinking lower in the sky.

‘How much longer?’ Skye asked herself wearily.

She felt as if she had been riding a whole lifetime.

Then, suddenly, they came to a pass between two low peaks. At one point there was a drop on one side of them so sheer that for a moment Skye closed her eyes. She had never cared for heights.

When she opened them again, she gave a little gasp. They had come through the range of mountains to the other side.

Beyond them was a valley, lush and fertile, filled with cattle grazing the high grass. Immediately below was a camp of wooden huts and tents of rawhide.