g scream struck their ears; something splashed suddenly close at
hand against the rock wall; chips scattered between them. From below,
the sound of a rifle report cracked against the face of the cliff.
They were so startled, so completely amazed that they stood
motionless. De Spain looked down and over the uneven floor of the
Gap. The ranch-houses, spread like toys in the long perspective, lay
peacefully revealed in the gray of the morning. Among the dark
pine-trees he could discern Nan's own home. Striving with the utmost
keenness of vision to detect where the shot had come from, de Spain
could discover no sign of life around any of the houses. But in
another moment the little singing scream came again, the blow of the
heavy slug against the splintering rock was repeated, the distant
report of the rifle followed.

"Under fire," muttered de Spain. He looked questioningly at Nan.
She herself, gazing across the dizzy depths, was searching for
the danger-point. A third shot followed at a seemingly regular
interval--the deliberate interval needed by a painstaking marksman
working out his range and taking his time to find it. De Spain
watched Nan's search anxiously. "We'd better keep moving," he said.
"Come! whoever is shooting can follow us a hundred yards either
way." In front of de Spain a fourth bullet struck the rock. "Nan,"
he muttered, "I've got you into a fix. If we can't stop that
fellow he is liable to stop us. Can you see anything?" he asked,
waiting for her to come up.

"Henry!" She was looking straight down into the valley, and laid her
hand on de Spain's shoulder. "Is there anything moving on the
ridge--over there--see--just east of Sassoon's ranch-house?"

De Spain, his eyes bent on the point Nan indicated, drew her forward
to a dip in the trail which, to one stretched flat, afforded a slight
protection. He made her lie down, and just beyond her refuge chose a
point where the path, broadening a little and rising instead of
sloping toward the outer edge, gave him a chance to brace himself
between two rocks. Flattened there like a target in mid-air, he threw
his hat down to Nan and, resting on one knee, waited for the shot that
should tumble him down El Capitan or betray the man bent on killing
him. Squalls of wind, sweeping into the Gap and sucked upward on the
huge expanse of rock below, tossed his hair and ballooned his coat as
he buttoned it. Another bullet, deliberately aimed, chipped the rock
above him