building. He crouched over her,
himself fully exposed, searching the hillside with strained eyes.
Suddenly he saw the bloated face not thirty yards away. Grylls had
partly stepped from behind a tree and was deliberately taking aim. Garth
sprang to his knees. The two guns spoke at once. Grylls pitched
headfirst down the steep slope into view; and rolled down the bare rocks
into the tiny stream.

"I've got him!" shouted Garth triumphantly.

Even as he spoke he toppled over sideways. Natalie clutched at him
wildly; but his coat was pulled out of her grasp. He slid off the rock
and dropped on the stones behind. In an instant she was at his side. He
was already struggling to rise--his teeth pressed into his lip until the
blood oozed between.

"Only my left shoulder," he muttered. "I can still shoot. There's Mary,
yet. Help me up."

Somehow, with her aid, he managed to pull himself back on the rock, one
arm dangling useless. Through his loophole, he saw Mary toiling openly
up the ravine. He showed himself. At the sight of him the old woman
paused and held out her hands as if inviting him to shoot. She had left
her gun. When he made no offer to fire, she quietly continued her climb.
Garth watched her grimly.

Reaching Grylls's body, she unwound a woollen scarf from about her
waist; and passing it under his shoulders, partly hoisted his great bulk
on her back with an incredible effort; and started down again. Grylls
was quite dead; his heels thudded limply from stone to stone.

Long before she reached the bottom, Garth lost interest in her progress.
He had fainted.

Natalie, working to restore him, distracted, hopeless, crazed, suddenly
heard a distant shout; and looking up distinguished a little cavalcade
winding down the face of the great gorge. There was a red coat among
them.

"Garth! We're saved! We're _saved_!" she cried to his unhearing ears.

XXV

EPILOGUE: SPOKEN BY CHARLEY

In the city of Winnipeg on a brilliant day toward the end of winter, a
broad-shouldered, ruddy youth, with dancing blue eyes and a capacious
smile, came running down a side street, and catching a certain
fence-post at full speed, swung himself inside the gate with the
dexterity of old practice; sprang up the steps and banged on the door.

It was opened questioningly by a little mouse of a woman, with great
brown eyes, and gray strands mixing in her bright, brown hair.

The boy flung his arms around her like a bear. "Mother!