Flaccid and inert as a corpse, he lay outstretched on the gra.s.sy slope while they bound up the cuts and bruises on his naked arms and shoulders and cut the broken, gaping boots from his bruised feet. His legs, doubly protected by the tough leather chapareras and thick riding leggins, had fared less cruelly than his arms, but his knees were raw and bleeding where the chaps had worn through on the rocks.

CHAPTER x.x.x

LURKING BEASTS

The moment that he had helped haul the climber to safety Gowan had ridden away with the horses to the camp. He now came jogging back with the tent and all else that they had not been carrying with them in their skirting of the canon edge. He unloaded the packs and hastened to pitch the tent.

As he was finishing, Isobel called to him sharply. "What are you doing there, Kid? That can wait. Come here."

"Yes, Miss Chuckie," he replied with ready obedience. But when he came down the slope to the little group, his mouth was like a thin gash across his lean jaws. He stared coldly at Ashton between narrowed lids. "Want me to help tote him up by the fire?" he asked.

"No!" she replied. "It is Tom! He is down there--his leg broken--and no food! You must go down to him."

"Go down?" queried the puncher. "What good would that do? I couldn't help him with that climb. He weighs a good two hundred."

"You can take food down to him and let him know that help is coming.

You must!"

Gowan looked sullenly at the unconscious man. "Sorry, Miss Chuckie.

It's no go. I ain't a mountain sheep."

"But _he_ came up!"

"That's different. It's a sight easier going up cliffs than climbing down. No, you'll have to excuse me, Miss Chuckie."

The girl flamed with indignant anger. "You coward! You saw him come up, after all that time down in those fearful depths--after fighting his way all those miles along the terrible river--yet you dare not go down! You coward! you quitter!"

The puncher's face turned a sickly yellow, and he seemed to shrink in on himself. His voice sank to a husky whisper: "You can say that, Miss Chuckie! Any man say it, he'd be dead before now. If you want to know, I've got a mighty good reason for not wanting to go down. It ain't that I'm afraid. You can bank on that. It's something else. I'll go quick enough--but it's got to be on one condition. You've got to promise to marry me."

"_Marry you?_"

"Yes. You know how I've felt towards you all these years. Promise to marry me, and I'll go to h.e.l.l and back for you. I'll do anything for you. I'll save him!"

"You cur! You'd force me to bargain myself to you!" she cried, fairly beside herself with righteous fury. "I thought you a man! You cur--you cowardly cur!"

Gowan turned from her and walked rapidly away along the canon edge, his head hunched between his shoulders, his hands downstretched at his thighs, the fingers crooked convulsively.

"Oh!" gasped Genevieve. "You've driven him away! Call him back! We need him! He must go for help!"

The words shocked the girl out of her rash anger. Her flushed face whitened with fear. "Kid!" she screamed. "Come back, Kid! You must go to the ranch--bring the men!"

The cry of appeal should have brought him back to her on the run. It pierced high above the booming reverberations of the canon. Yet he paid no heed. He neither halted nor paused nor even looked back. If anything, he hurried away faster than before.

"Kid! dear Kid! forgive me! Come back and help us!" shrieked the girl.

He kept on down along the canon rim, his chin sunk on his breast, his downstretched hands bent like claws. She ran a little way after him; only to flutter back again, wringing her hands, distracted. "What shall we do? what shall we do?"

"Be quiet, dear--be quiet!" urged Genevieve. "You've driven him away.

We must do the best we can. You must go yourself. I can stay and watch--"

"No, no!" cried Isobel. "The way he looked at Lafe!--I dare not go! He may come back--and I not here!"

She knelt to place her trembling hand on Ashton's forehead.

Genevieve looked at the setting sun. "There is no time to lose," she said. "Saddle my horse while I nurse Baby. I cannot take him with me down the mountain, in the dark."

"Genevieve! You dare go--at night?"

"Someone must bring help, else Tom--all alone down in that dreadful chasm--!"

"But you may lose the way! I will go!"

"No, no, you must stay, Belle. I saw his eyes. He may come back. I could not protect Lafayette, but you--There is no other way. I must leave Baby, and go."

Wondering at the courage of the young mother, Isobel ran to saddle the oldest of the picketed horses. He was the slowest of them all, but he was surefooted and steady and very wise. When she brought him down the ridge, Genevieve placed the newly fed baby in her arms and went with the gla.s.ses to peer down the sheer precipices. There in the blackness so far beneath her the glowing fire illuminated an outstretched form.

It was her husband, lying flat on his back and gazing up at the heights. Almost she could fancy that he saw her as she saw him.

But she did not linger. Time was too precious. She dropped him a kiss, and ran to spring upon the waiting pony. She did not pause even to kiss the big-eyed baby. The thirsty pony needed no urging to start at a lively jog up the slope of the first ridge. As he topped the crest and broke into a lope the sun dipped below the western edge of High Mesa. A few seconds later horse and rider disappeared from Isobel's anxious gaze down the far side of the ridge.

"Old Buck knows the trail," murmured the girl. "He knows he is headed for the waterhole. Yet if--if he _should_ lose the trail!"

A spasm of fear sent her hand to the pistol hilt under the fold of her skirt and twisted her head about. She glared along the canon rim.

Gowan was still striding away from her. She watched him fixedly, her hand clutched fast on the hilt of her pistol, until he disappeared around a ma.s.s of rocks.

The whinnying of the horses after their companion at last drew her attention. They had not been watered since the previous evening.

Cuddling close the frightened baby, the girl fetched a basin and one of the water cans, to sponge out the dusty nostrils of the animals and give each two or three swallows.

Then, when she had soothed the fretful child to sleep, she laid him in a snug nest of blankets between a rock and a fallen tree, and went to watch beside Ashton. He lay as she had left him, in a stupor of sleep and exhaustion.

Gradually the twilight faded. Stars began to twinkle in the cloudless sky. She watched and waited while the dusk deepened. When she could barely see objects a few yards away, she stooped over the unconscious man and, putting out all her supple young strength, half dragged, half carried him up the slope to a hiding place that she had chosen, in under an overhanging ledge. There she spread pine needles and blankets on the soft mold and lifted him upon them, so that nothing hard should press against his wounds.

The fire had burned low. It was a full hundred yards away from the hiding place. She went to replenish it and take a hasty look down at that outstretched form in the depths. But soon she stole back to the sleeping man under the rock, going, as she had come, by a roundabout way in the darkness.

Night settled down close and dense over the plateau. The girl crouched beside the sleeper, her eyes peering out into the blackness, the drawn pistol ready in her hand. She could see only a few feet in the dim starlight. But her ears, accustomed to the dull monotone of the booming canon, heard every sound--the click of the horses' hoofs, even the munching of the nearest one, the hoot of the owls that flitted overhead, the distant yelps and wails of coyotes.

An hour pa.s.sed, two hours--a third. She crept around to replenish the fire. When she returned she heard the baby fretting. Swiftly she groped her way to him and carried him to the hiding place, to quiet his outcry. He sucked in a little of the beaten egg and cream that she had ready for Ashton. It satisfied his hunger, and he fell asleep, clasped against her soft warm bosom. She crouched down with him in her lap, her right hand again clasped on the pistol hilt, ready for the expected attack.

She waited as before, silent, motionless, every sense alert. Another hour dragged by, and another. Midnight pa.s.sed. Suddenly, on the ridge slope above her, one of the horses snorted and plunged. She raised the pistol. The horse became quiet. But something came gliding around the rocks, a low form vaguely outlined in the darkness. It might have been a creeping man. It turned towards the hiding place. The girl found herself looking into a pair of glaring eyes. She thrust out the pistol, with her forefinger pointing along the barrel. The darkness was too deep for her to aim by the sights.

Before she could press the trigger, the beast bounded away, with a snarl far deeper, far more ferocious than any coyote could have uttered. The girl did not fire. The wolf had seen the glint of her pistol barrel and had fled. He would not return. But she shuddered and drew the sleeping baby close as she thought of what might have happened had she left him alone in the nest between the rock and the tree.

The precious, helpless child! He was of her own blood, the son of her strong, splendid brother ... of her brother, lying down there in those awful depths, helpless--in agony!...