ove it intact, and below these there remained a cave-like space which
the slowly decaying supports served to roof.

Laramie on a hunting trip had once discovered this retreat and had at
times used it as a shelter when caught over night in its vicinity.
During subsequent visits he found an overhang in the rock behind the
original fill that made a second smaller chamber and in this he had as
a boy cached his mink and rat traps and the discard of his hunting
equipment.

To the later people coming into the Falling Wall country with cattle
the existence of all this was practically unknown. Nothing visible
betrayed the retreat and to men who rarely left the saddle and had
little occasion to cross the bad lands, there was slight chance to
stumble on it. It was here, a few miles west of his own home, that
Laramie had carried Hawk.

Making his way in the darkness toward the dugout, Laramie whistled low
and clearly, and planting his feet with care on a foothold of old
masonry swung down to where a fissure opening in the rock afforded
entrance into the irregular room.

A single word came in a low tone from the darkness: "Jim?"

Laramie, answering, struck a match and, after a little groping, lighted
a candle and set it in a niche near where Hawk lay. The rustler was
stretched on a rude bunk. The furnishings of the cave-like refuge were
the scantiest. Between uprights supporting the old roof, a plank
against the wall served as a narrow table; the bunk had been built into
the opposite wall out of planking left by the bridge carpenters. For
the rest there was little more in the place than the few belongings of
a hunter's lodge long deserted. A quilt served for mattress and
bedding for Hawk and his sunken eyes above his black beard showed how
sorely he needed surgical care. To this, Laramie lost no time in
getting. He provided more lights, opened his kit of dressings and with
a pail of water went to work.

What would have seemed impossible to a surgeon, Laramie with two hours'
crude work accomplished on Hawk's wounds. But in a country where the
air is so pure that major operations may be performed in ordinary
cabins, cleanliness and care, even though rude, count for more than
they possibly could elsewhere. The most difficult part of the task
that night lay in getting water up the almost sheer canyon wall from
the river three hundred feet below. It would have been a man's job in
daylight; add to this black night and t