She stood perfectly still with the exception of motioning Linda
to crowd back under the bushes, and again Linda realized that she had
no authority; as she had done from childhood when Katy was in earnest,
Linda obeyed her. She had barely reached the overhanging bushes,
crouched under them, and straightened herself, when a small avalanche
came showering down, and a minute later a pair of feet were level with
her head. Then screened by the bushes, she could have reached out and
touched Oka Sayye. As his feet found a solid resting place on the ledge
on which Linda and Katy stood, and while he was still clinging to the
bushes, Katherine O'Donovan advanced upon him. He had felt that his feet
were firm, let go his hold, and turned, when he faced the infuriated
Irishwoman. She had pulled the strap from around her neck, slipped the
axe from it, and with a strong thrust she planted the head of it against
Oka Sayye's chest so hard that she almost fell forward. The Jap plunged
backward among the bushes, the roots of which had supported Linda
while she used the glasses. Then he fell, sliding among them, snatching
wildly. Linda gripped the overhanging growth behind which she had been
screened, and leaned forward.

"He has a hold; he is coming back up, Katy!" she cried.

Katy took another step forward. She looked over the cliff down an
appalling depth of hundreds of feet. Deliberately she raised the axe,
circled it round her head and brought it down upon that particular
branch to which Oka Sayye was clinging. She cut it through, and the axe
rang upon the stone wall behind it. As she swayed forward Linda reached
out, gripped Katy and pulled her back.

"Get him?" she asked tersely, as if she were speaking of a rat or a
rattlesnake.

Katy sank back limply against the wall. Linda slowly turned her around,
and as she faced the rock, "Squeeze tight against it shut your eyes, and
keep a stiff upper lip," she cautioned. "I'm going to work around you; I
want to be ahead of you."

She squeezed past Katy, secured the axe and hung it round her own neck.
She cautioned Katy to keep her eyes shut and follow where she led her,
then they started on their way back. Linda did not attempt to descend
the sheer wall by which they had climbed, but making a detour she went
lower, and in a very short time they were back in the kitchen. Linda
rushed to the boulder and knelt again, but she could get no response to
her questions. Evidently Donald's foot w