at his hand stupidly as at
an alien member; then suddenly he understood; and whipping out his
handkerchief, bound up the wound, knotting the linen with teeth and
fingers.

Up to this moment Garth had been playing a dispassionate game; but he
returned to his loophole conscious of a great surge of cold rage against
those below. He yearned to get even; but he could wait for it. Mabyn
exposed his hat tantalizingly; Grylls shot out a foot, or bobbed up his
head--but Garth saved his bullets. He would not even try to pierce the
sharpshooters' defenses again. An occasional shot came from there; but
never such another as the last.

Finally Grylls changed his tactics. From behind his rock he taunted
Garth vilely. The walls of the ravine reverberated horridly with the
sound of the sudden human voice.

But Garth still bided his time; merely adding the insult of the words to
Natalie's ears, to the score of his rage.

Natalie in the meantime, thankful to have something to do, had been
piling stones as heavy as she could lift, on the rock behind him. She
had torn the sling from her arm; and was using the weaker member to
steady the other.

Garth, fearful that Grylls might succeed in flanking them at last,
ordered her to climb up behind him; and without turning his head, told
her how to make a little parapet along the top of the rock on the
exposed side.

Garth finally got his chance. A little stone rolled down from Mabyn's
hiding-place; and he instantly trained his gun on the spot. Mabyn,
miscalculating, or losing his head, suddenly scurried for the next rock.
Garth had marked it. Mabyn gained it, but before he could pull his legs
after him the rifle spoke. There was a scream of pain; and Mabyn's
body, sliding from behind the rock, rolled and dropped heavily from
stone to stone. A leg caught in a fissure and stayed him; he hung head
downward, writhing in hideous, theatrical postures of agony, and
screaming like a woman. Garth, thinking of Natalie, longed to send a
shot to still the noise; but his hand was held by his promise to Rina.

It was all over in a minute after that. Grylls, careless of the other's
fate, scrambled up from stone to stone. Garth peppered his course with
bullets; but the rocks were scattered so thickly, Grylls needed to
expose himself for scarcely a second at a time. He gained the trees at
last.

An instant of terrible suspense succeeded. Garth made Natalie lie close
under the little wall she had been