s;
from the rent in the mountain came the deeper, more distant-rolling thunder
that they had heard on the other side of the range. And then, as he looked,
a sharper cry broke from Joanne, and she dragged him back from the ledge,
and pointed toward the tepee.

Out from among the rocks had appeared a human figure. It was a woman. Her
hair was streaming wildly about her, and in the sun it was black as a
crow's wing. She rushed to the tepee, opened the flap, and looked in. Then
she turned, and a cry that was almost a scream rang from her lips. In
another moment she had seen Aldous and Joanne, and was running toward them.
They advanced to meet her. Suddenly Aldous stopped, and with a sharp
warning to Joanne he threw his rifle half to his shoulder, and faced the
rocks from which the speeding figure had come. In that same instant they
both recognized her. It was Marie, the woman who had ridden the bear at
Tete Jaune, and with whom Mortimer FitzHugh had bought Joe DeBar!

She staggered up to them, panting, exhausted, her breath coming in gulping
sobs. For a moment she could not speak. Her dress was torn; her waist was
ripped so that it exposed her throat and shoulder; and the front of the
waist and her face were stained with blood. Her black eyes shone like a
madwoman's. Fiercely she fought to get her breath, and all the time she
clung to Joanne, and looked at Aldous. She pointed toward the rocks--the
chaotic upheaval that lay between the tepee and the chasm--and words broke
gaspingly from her lips.

"They're coming!--coming!" she cried. "They killed Joe--murdered him--and
they're coming--to kill you!" She clutched a hand to her breast, and then
pointed with it to the mountain where MacDonald had gone. "They saw him
go--and they sent two men to kill him; and the rest are coming through the
rocks!" She turned sobbingly to Joanne. "They killed Joe," she moaned.
"They killed Joe, and they're coming--for _you!_"

The emphasis on that final word struck like a blow in the ears of John
Aldous.

"Run for the spruce!" he commanded. "Joanne, run!"

Marie had crumpled down in a moaning heap at Joanne's feet, and sat swaying
with her face in her hands.

"They killed him--they murdered my Joe!" she was sobbing. "And it was my
fault--my fault! I trapped him! I sold him! And, oh, my God, I loved him--I
loved him!"

"Run, Joanne!" commanded Aldous a second time. "Run for the spruce!"

Instead of obeying him, Joanne knelt down beside