“While Donald is taking his look from the mountain, I’m going to investigate the chasm,” he said.

She followed him, a few steps behind.  The roar grew in their ears as they advanced.  After a little solid rock replaced the earth under their feet, and twenty paces from the precipice Aldous took Joanne by the hand.  They went to the edge and looked over.  Fifty feet below them the stream was caught in the narrow space between the two chasm walls, and above the rush and roar of it Aldous heard the startled cry that came from Joanne.  She clutched his hand fiercely.  Fascinated she gazed down.  The water, speeding like a millrace, was a lather of foam; and up through this foam there shot the crests of great rocks, as though huge monsters of some kind were at play, whipping the torrent into greater fury, and bellowing forth thunderous voices.  Downstream Aldous could see that the tumult grew less; from the rent in the mountain came the deeper, more distant-rolling thunder that they had heard on the other side of the range.  And then, as he looked, a sharper cry broke from Joanne, and she dragged him back from the ledge, and pointed toward the tepee.

Out from among the rocks had appeared a human figure.  It was a woman.  Her hair was streaming wildly about her, and in the sun it was black as a crow’s wing.  She rushed to the tepee, opened the flap, and looked in.  Then she turned, and a cry that was almost a scream rang from her lips.  In another moment she had seen Aldous and Joanne, and was running toward them.  They advanced to meet her.  Suddenly Aldous stopped, and with a sharp warning to Joanne he threw his rifle half to his shoulder, and faced the rocks from which the speeding figure had come.  In that same instant they both recognized her.  It was Marie, the woman who had ridden the bear at Tete Jaune, and with whom Mortimer FitzHugh had bought Joe DeBar!

She staggered up to them, panting, exhausted, her breath coming in gulping sobs.  For a moment she could not speak.  Her dress was torn; her waist was ripped so that it exposed her throat and shoulder; and the front of the waist and her face were stained with blood.  Her black eyes shone like a madwoman’s.  Fiercely she fought to get her breath, and all the time she clung to Joanne, and looked at Aldous.  She pointed toward the rocks—­the chaotic upheaval that lay between the tepee and the chasm—­and words broke gaspingly from her lips.

“They’re coming!—­coming!” she cried.  “They killed Joe—­murdered him—­and they’re coming—­to kill you!” She clutched a hand to her breast, and then pointed with it to the mountain where MacDonald had gone.  “They saw him go—­and they sent two men to kill him; and the rest are coming through the rocks!” She turned sobbingly to Joanne.  “They killed Joe,” she moaned.  “They killed Joe, and they’re coming—­for you!”

The emphasis on that final word struck like a blow in the ears of John Aldous.