t--if he--Where is Genevieve? I cannot go and leave you alone."

"You can--you must! He is a coward. He dare not follow you down that
terrible place. No harm will come to me if you are gone. But if he
comes back and finds you--do you not see that if he kills you, he must
also kill me? But in the morning, when the others come--Oh, why
hasn't Daddy come? All this long time since you went down into the
depths, and he not with us! If only he were here!"

"Genevieve?" again inquired Ashton.

"She has gone. She started down the mountain for help when Kid went
away. I'm so afraid for you, dear! He may be creeping back now--he may
be waiting already, close by here, in the darkness. But if he has not
heard our voices, he will go first to where you came up, and then to
the tent. Keep quiet until I return. Wait; here is cream and egg.
Drink it all."

When he had drained the bowl that she held to his lips, she crept
away. Ashton sat still, the warm, soft little body of the sleeping
baby in his arms, the pistol in his bandaged right hand. In her
excitement Isobel had forgotten his bound fingers. If Gowan had come
on him then, he would have put the baby back in under the rock, and
faced the puncher's revolver with a smile. What had he now to live
for? He had lost her. She had not yet grasped the baseness of what he
had thought and done. As soon as she realized ... And he could never
forgive himself.

CHAPTER XXXII

OVER THE BRINK

Isobel came back to him, noiselessly gliding around through the
darkness. She set down the bundle she was carrying, and hung blankets
over the entrance of the little cave. She then lighted the lantern. He
held out his bound hands. She unbound them enough for him to use his
fingers, and taking the baby and the pistol, crouched down, with her
ear close to the screening blankets, while he exchanged his tattered
clothes for those she had brought to him.

There were also his change of boots and a pair of Blake's gauntlet
gloves, into which he was able to force his slender fingers without
removing the remaining bandages. Isobel had already bound up into a
kind of knapsack the food and clothing and first-aid package that he
was to take down to her injured brother. He slung it upon his back,
and whispered that he was ready.

She nestled the baby in the warm blankets on which he had lain,
wrapped a blanket about the lantern, and led him cautiously down to
the brink of the chasm. Dark as was the n