t, which was caught in the stirrup. The slope was too steep
for them to come to a stop. Earth and small stones, dislodged by their
struggles, were rolling down with them and before them in a miniature
avalanche. She stood very quietly, holding one hand against her heart
and gazing down. But while she saw the real happening, in her eyes was
also the vision of her father dealing the spectral blow that had smashed
Comanche down in mid-leap and sent horse and rider hurtling over the
edge.

Beneath horse and man the steep terminated in an up-and-down wall, from
the base of which, in turn, a second slope ran down to a second wall.
A third slope terminated in a final wall that based itself on the
canyon-bed four hundred feet beneath the point where the girl stood and
watched. She could see Chris vainly kicking his leg to free the foot
from the trap of the stirrup. Comanche fetched up hard against an
outputting point of rock. For a fraction of a second his fall was
stopped, and in the slight interval the man managed to grip hold of a
young shoot of manzanita. Lute saw him complete the grip with his other
hand. Then Comanche's fall began again. She saw the stirrup-strap draw
taut, then her lover's body and arms. The manzanita shoot yielded its
roots, and horse and man plunged over the edge and out of sight.

They came into view on the next slope, together and rolling over and
over, with sometimes the man under and sometimes the horse. Chris no
longer struggled, and together they dashed over to the third slope. Near
the edge of the final wall, Comanche lodged on a buttock of stone. He
lay quietly, and near him, still attached to him by the stirrup, face
downward, lay his rider.

"If only he will lie quietly," Lute breathed aloud, her mind at work on
the means of rescue.

But she saw Comanche begin to struggle again, and clear on her vision,
it seemed, was the spectral arm of her father clutching the reins and
dragging the animal over. Comanche floundered across the hummock, the
inert body following, and together, horse and man, they plunged from
sight. They did not appear again. They had fetched bottom.

Lute looked about her. She stood alone on the world. Her lover was gone.
There was naught to show of his existence, save the marks of Comanche's
hoofs on the road and of his body where it had slid over the brink.

"Chris!" she called once, and twice; but she called hopelessly.

Out of the depths, on the windless air, arose