bluffs edge, and began to descend through
its branches with the swiftness and agility of a monkey.

"How is he--is he alive?"

The old man put the query at the edge of the gulf, stooping, peering
over. Jim Cal sat down suddenly and began wiping his forehead. The
moonlight showed his round face very pale under its beaded sweat.

"Andy'll git hisself killed!" whimpered Pendrilla.

And Huldah broke into loud hysteric weeping, on the tide of which
"Creed--Pap Spiller--Blatch Turrentine" were cast up now and again.

"Hush, cain't ye?" demanded Jephthah, angrily; "I cain't hear one word
they answer me down thar. Hello, boys. Is he livin'?"

Andy had evidently reached the searchers at the foot of the cliff. Loud,
confused voices came up to those above. Finally,

"W'y, Pap, we ain't never found him," Jeff called.

"Ye _what_?" demanded the father incredulously.

"We ain't--never--found him," reiterated Jeff doggedly.

The old man drew back sharply with a look of swift anger in his face.

"Well, ef ye hain't found him by now ye better quit lookin', hadn't ye?"
he suggested as he straightened to his full height and turned his back.

"Creed Bonbright's jest about been here an' hid the body, that's what
he's done," Taylor Stribling clamoured after him in futile explanation.
But the old man gave no heed. Lantern in hand, he was already addressing
himself to a careful examination of the scene of the struggle. The torn
vines where Creed had fallen through the fissure instantly caught his
eye.

"Come up here, you-all!" he turned and shouted toward the gulf. He swung
his lantern far out over the crevice. "Look at that," he said quietly.
"Thar's whar yo' man got away from ye." He handed the lantern to Wade,
and swung himself lightly down where Creed had fallen.

"Better let me go, Pap," said Wade, and Judith mutely stared after the
old man as he disappeared into the dark.

For fifteen minutes or more the watchers on the cliff waited and
trembled, straining ears and eyes. In that time they were joined by those
from the foot of the bluff, all but Stribling, who, the boys said, had
"gone on home." Then they heard sounds of clambering in the cleft, and
the old man's face appeared in the well of inky shadow, pale, the black
eyes burning, the great black beard flowing backward to join the darkness
behind him. Wade held his lantern high. It lit a circle of faces on which
terror, anger, and distress wrought. Judith could scarcely