he raiding
party were properly organized, both men knew was for them
impossible--and they knew that Harry Van Horn organized well. The
alternative was to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

This was by no means a terrifying conclusion to men inured to affray.
And for the moment, at feast, the situation was in their hands, not in
the enemies'.

A deluge of wind and rain swept through the broken roof. Laramie,
stretching one arm through the debris, felt the shoulder of the rider,
flung in the violence of the fall close to him.

The prostrate horse renewed his struggles to get to his feet.

Laramie, exposed to the pouring rain, covered with mud, bruised by
broken rock still rolling down the open crater, and caught among rotten
timbers, struggled to right himself before his enemy should do so. He
raised himself by a violent effort to his elbow, freed his pistol arm
and reaching over, pushed his cocked revolver into the side of the
fallen horseman.

A bolt of lightning shot across the crater, leaving behind it an inky
blackness of rain and wind. The sudden onslaught from overhead might
well have confused his senses; but he had seen the lightning sweep
across a white, drawn face turned toward the angry sky--and in the
flash he had caught the features of Kate Doubleday.

Stunned though he was by the revelation, he knew his senses had not
tricked him. There was in his memory but one such riding cap as that
which shaded her closed eyes; for him, but one such coil of woman's
hair as that falling now in disarray on her neck. Completely unnerved,
he carefully drew away his revolver, averted the muzzle and spoke
angrily through the dark: "Who's here with you?"

There was no answer. He asked the question sternly again, listening
keenly the while for sounds of other riders above. Had she discovered
the retreat and led to it his enemies? Could it be possible that even
they would allow her with them on such an errand and on such a night?

He called her name. The roar of the canyon answered above the storm;
there was no sound else. Once more he stretched out his arm. His hand
rested on her breast and he was doubly sure his senses had not tricked
him. But she might be dying or dead. The fear struck home that she
was dead. Then her bosom rose in a hardly perceptible respiration.

A storm of emotion swept Laramie. He squirmed under the debris that
pinned him and got nearer to her. He listened still for sounds