ain in its case, her pole touching the
snow, she approached until she could look down. Only the steep wall on
the far side, sinking straight and black into the swollen torrent, only
a little speck of white far down which might have been a struggling
body or a fleck of foam.

"The poor little thing," she said again. "He saw that the far bank is
lower than this one, and he was too frightened to guess the distance."

Musing, she thought that her skis were merely settling a little deeper
through the crust when she felt a slight sinking underneath. Then,
suddenly, she was aware that her skis were dipping downward, that she
was slipping. She tried hastily to draw back, she felt that she was
still slipping, that the polished surfaces of the skis were answering
the call of gravity, that she was being drawn closer, closer in spite
of her efforts . . .

She made a wild, frantic attempt to draw back, a quick terror gripping
her. The shouting river was calling to her, something was pulling at
her body steadily as a magnet pulls at a steel, the world was slipping
away under her, she was going the way the rabbit had gone . . .

Then she threw her body backward, twisting as best she could with the
skis clinging to her feet, clutching with her hands at anything her
fingers might touch. She heard a splash, knew that the overhang of
snow had dropped into the river, knew that one ski was hanging over the
brink. And then the hand that had gripped at the smooth snow sank down
and clutched the top of a small, hidden pine, she drew herself up and
back and in a moment, white, shaking she lay still, not daring to look
down.

CHAPTER V

THE HOME COMING OF RED RECKLESS

Winter went its white way, the spring brought a thawing sun,
innumerable muddy torrents and an occasional visitor, the robins and
blue birds began to troop back to the mountains. Martin Leland was at
home, his sturdier steers were in the valleys, Conway came back to the
Bar L-M and often visited the Lelands. Sledge Hume rode up from the
Dry Lands, fifty miles down the slope of the mountains and was often in
consultation with Martin and with Garth Conway.

Warm weather battled against the rear guard of winter, only patches of
soiled snow remained upon the north side of the ridges, in the narrow
canons and upon the lofty summits of the peaks standing up about the
valleys. The early flowers dotted the valleys, more cattle were moved
in, and the season develo