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set out for one of the two chairs at the small table. Thanks to the long ride astride the back of a mule, her thighs were bruised and her bottom felt as if she'd taken a beating, but she managed to hobble across the room without drawing comment from either man. Taking care with her tender bottom, she eased onto the sturdiest chair, and then stared out the window at the barn and the sparse forest beyond. She shivered against the cold, mildly longing for the smelly horse blanket.
    "I wouldn't bother with getting too comfortable, Josie." Daniel was the first to address her. "While Long Belly is out getting supplies, you and your friend ought to be stoking up that fire. You're going to need a nice hot stove to bake up a decent batch of biscuits."
    Purging herself of as much fear as possible, Josie swallowed the truth as if it were a dose of salts and lied through her teeth. "I won't be baking up biscuits or anything else. I don't know how to cook."
    She didn't dare turn around to see how this information was received, but she could hear plenty of grumbling going on behind her. Plainly, this news not only astonished them, but didn't set well with the fellas either.
    "You sure know how to go about finding me a woman," said Daniel at last. "Yessir, you really know how to pick 'em."
    Josie looked up in time to see the savage shoot both her and Sissy a murderous glance. "I cannot understand women who do not cook," he muttered. "Perhaps we can teach them."
    "In one night?" Josie said impulsively.
    To that Sissy added, "Too bad you didn't buy Lola's cook while you were there, red man."
    Long Belly considered all this, and then said, "I will cook our supper tonight. Tomorrow will be soon enough for these lazy females to learn chores they should already know."
    Daniel shook his head. "You're taking those women back to Miles City first thing in the morning—make no mistake about it, Long Belly."
    "That is not possible." The savage pointed out the window. "Have you looked at the skies? The leaves of the cottonwood fill the river, and even the horses at the mission school have grown many thick hairs since the last moon. A big storm approaches."
    "Are you sure?"
    As the savage assured his brother of what he'd seen, Josie's spirits fell. She'd noticed the changes in the weather, but had hoped somehow to be rescued long before now. If an Indian who knew his way around these parts couldn't get down the mountain, how would she ever get away from these beasts and their filthy cabin? As she considered her increasingly perilous situation and ways of making good her escape, Sissy came over and fell into the seat across from her. The savage headed for the stove, grumbling to himself as he stuffed chunks of wood into it. And Daniel drifted off to sleep, snoring intermittently as his brother wrestled with the frying pan over a hot burner.
    Supper that night turned out to be a throat-puckering combination of rusty salt pork and canned beans cooked up by the savage. This was accompanied by a lump of hardtack that was so dried out and old, it didn't even soften when Josie dunked it in her coffee. After the meal was finished, both she and Sissy begged off the mountain of dishes by claiming exhaustion, which in no way was an exaggeration thanks to the all-night journey to this godforsaken place. Josie's eyes felt as if they'd been rolled in cornmeal, and her bruised legs could barely hold her upright.
    It was as she was contemplating a place in which to sleep that the savage approached with yet another demand.—a chore Josie had no intention of taking on.
    "You may wait until morning to clean dishes," he said magnanimously. "But tonight you must dump my brother's slop pail before you can rest. It is there in the cabinet by his bed."
    Josie gagged at the thought. "Do it yourself," she said recklessly.
    This enraged the savage. "You will do as you are told, and you will do it now."
    Josie backed against the door, afraid that she'd pressed her luck with the