lieved it true. But it was not true.
Belle did not die--God! when I think of that! It has helped me through
this fight--it helped me crawl up here with that leg dangling. Good
God! To think of Jenny waiting for me up there, and Son, and little
Belle too--little Belle whom all these years I thought dead!"

Ashton stood as if turned to stone. "Belle--you call her Belle? She
told me--Chuckie only a nickname!" he stammered. "Adopted--her real
name Isobel!"

"We always called her Belle--Baby Belle! She was the youngest," said
Blake.

"But why--why did you not--tell me?"

"I did not know. She did--she knew from the first, there at
Stockchute. I see it now. Even before that, she must have guessed it.
Yes, I see all now. She sent for me to come out here, because she
thought I might be her brother."

"You did not tell me!" reproached Ashton, his face ghastly. "How was I
to know?"

"I tell you, I did not know," repeated Blake. "At first--yes, all
along--there was something about her voice and face--But she had
changed so much, and all these years--eight, nine years--I had thought
her dead. She gave me no sign--only that friendliness. I did not know
until the very last moment, there on the edge of the ravine. I thought
you saw it; that you heard her tell me. It seemed to me everybody must
have heard."

"I was running away--I could not bear it. I think I must have been
crazy for a time. If only I had heard! My God! if only I had heard!"

"Well, you know now," said Blake. "What's done is done. The question
now is, what are you going to do next?"

Instantly Ashton's drooping figure was a-quiver with eagerness.

"You wish first to be taken up near the driftwood," he exclaimed.
"Let me lift you. Don't be afraid to put your weight on me. Hurry! We
must lose no time!"

Blake was already struggling up. Ashton strained to help him rise
erect on his sound leg. Braced and half lifted by the younger man, the
engineer hobbled and hopped along the barrier crest and up its sloping
side. His trained eye picked out a great weather-seasoned pine log
lying directly beneath the outermost point of the canyon rim. An object
dropped over where the flag still flecked against the indigo sky,
would have fallen straight down to the log, unless deflected by the
prong of a ledge that jutted out twelve hundred feet from the top.

"Here," panted Blake, regardless of the great pile of skeletons heaped
on the far end of the log. "This place--right