ed with
her, Helen did not know. But she heard him cry out, saw him swing his hat,
and the buckskin started on a hard gallop along the verge of the precipice
toward the very goal for which the Rose pony was headed.

"The foolish fellow! He'll be killed!" gasped Helen, in sudden fright.
"That soil there crumbles like cheese! There! He's down!"

She saw the buckskin's forefoot sink. The brute stumbled and rolled
over--fortunately for the pony _away_ from the cliff's edge.

But the buckskin's rider was hurled into the air. He sprawled forward like
a frog diving and--without touching the ground--passed over the brink of
the precipice and disappeared from Helen's startled gaze.

CHAPTER II

DUDLEY STONE

The victim of the accident made no sound. No scream rose from the depths
after he disappeared. The buckskin pony rolled over, scrambled to its
feet, and cantered off across the plateau.

Helen Morrell had swerved her own mount farther to the south and came to
the edge of the caved-in bit of bank with a rush of hoofs that ended in a
wild scramble as she bore down upon the Rose pony's bit.

She was out of her saddle, and had flung the reins over Rose's head, on
the instant. The well-trained pony stood like a rock.

The girl, her heart beating tumultuously, crept on hands and knees to the
crumbling edge of the bluff.

She knew its scarred face well. There were outcropping boulders, gravel
pits, ledges of shale, brush clumps and a few ragged trees clinging
tenaciously to the water-worn gullies.

She expected to see the man crushed and bleeding on some rock below.
Perhaps he had rolled clear to the bottom.

But as her swift gaze searched the face of the bluff, there was no rock,
splotched with red, in her line of vision. Then she saw something in the
top of one of the trees, far down.

It was the yellow handkerchief which the stranger had worn. It fluttered
in the evening breeze like a flag of distress.

"E-e-e-_yow!_" cried Helen, making a horn of her hands as she leaned over
the edge of the precipice, and uttering the puncher's signal call.

"E-e-e-_yow!_" came up a faint reply.

She saw the green top of the tree stir. Then a face--scratched and
streaked with blood--appeared.

"For the love of heaven!" called a thin voice. "Get somebody with a rope.
I've got to have some help."

"I have a rope right here. Pass it under your arms, and I'll swing you out
of that tree-top," replied Helen, promptly.