nted angrily.

The two figures separated, one going along the crest of the ridge, the
other climbing downward cautiously until he stood at the edge of the
cliffs. He craned his body to look down as though seeking a way to the
lake; he straightened and stared for a long time toward the snow tops of
the more distant altitudes. The sun lay in pools all about him, and
across the distance separating him and his companion from the man who
watched them so intently, his gestures could be followed readily. He
turned and must have said something to his companion, who leaped down
from a boulder and came to his side. The second man towered over him,
head and shoulder. This the eyes upon the other slope were quick to
note; they cleared briefly as though with a new understanding, only to
grow harder than before.

They talked together, and yet the only sound to carry across the lake
and meadow was the rush of air through innumerable tree-tops. The blue
water glinted softly under the westering sun; in the blue void of the
sky the hawk wheeled, silent and graceful and watchful. The smaller man
pointed, his arm outheld steadily. The other drew nearer, towering above
him. He, too, pointed or seemed about to point. They stood so close
together that the two figures merged. From a distance they looked like
one man now.

It was with startling abruptness that the two figures were torn apart,
each resolved again into an individual. One, the towering man, had drawn
suddenly back; the other was falling. And yet the silence was unbroken.
There was never a cry to echo through the gorges from a horror-clutched
throat. The falling man plunged straight down a dozen feet, struck
against a ragged rock, writhed free, fell again a few feet, and began to
roll. There had been the flash of the sun on the rifle in his hand; he
had clutched wildly at that as though it could save him. Now it flew
from his grasp as he rolled over and over, plunging down the steep flank
of the mountain.

The man who had watched from across the lake had not stirred. The big
man on the cliffs came back slowly to the brink and crouched there,
looking down, motionless so long that it was hard for the eye to be sure
of him, to know if it were really a human being or a poised boulder
squatting there. There came no call from below; the hawk wheeled and
wheeled, lost interest, drifting away. In the little hollow where the
lake glinted it was very still with the soft perfection of the