“Here’s the place,” Pink called back to them, after some minutes of riding.  “Andy’s horse is down there, too, but I don’t see Andy—­”

“Chances is—­” began Happy Jack, but found no one listening.

It would be impossible to ride down, so they dismounted and prepared for the scramble.  They could see Buck, packed as if for the homeward trail, and they could see Andy’s horse, saddled and feeding with reins dragging.  He looked up at them and whinnied, and the sound but accentuated the loneliness of the place.  Buck, too, saw them and came toward them, whinnying wistfully; but, though they strained eyes in every direction, they could see nothing of the man they sought.

It was significant of their apprehension that not even Happy Jack made open comment upon the strangeness of it.  Instead, they dug bootheels deep where the slope was loose gravel, and watched that their horses did not slide down upon them; climbed over rocks where the way was barred, and prayed that horse and man might not break a leg.  They had been over rough spots, and had climbed in and out of deep coulees, but never had they travelled a rougher trail than that.

“My God! boys, look down there!” Pink cried, when yet fifty perpendicular feet lay between them and the level below.

They looked, and drew breath sharply.  Huddled at the very foot of the last and worst slope lay Andy, and they needed no words to explain what had happened.  It was evident that he had started to climb the bluff and had slipped and fallen to the bottom, And from the way he was lying—­The Happy Family shut out the horror of the thought and hurried recklessly to the place.

It was Pink who, with a last slide and a stumbling recovery at the bottom, reached him first.  It was Jack Bates who came a close second and helped to turn him—­for he had fallen partly on his face.  From the way one arm was crumpled back under him, they knew it to be broken.  Further than that they could only guess and hope.  While they were feeling for heart-beats, the others came down and crowded close.  Pink looked up at them strainedly.

“Oh, for God’s sake, some of yuh get water,” he cried sharply.  “What good do yuh think you’re doing, just standing around?”

“We ought to be hung for letting him come down here alone,” Weary repented.  “It ain’t safe for one man in this cursed country.  Where’s he hurt, Cadwolloper?”

“How in hell do I know?” Anxiety ever sharpened the tongue of Pink.  “If somebody’d bring some water—­”

“Happy’s gone.  And there ain’t a drop uh whisky in the crowd!  Can’t we get him into the shade?  This damned sun is enough to—­”

“Look out how yuh lift him, man!  You ain’t wrassling a calf, remember!  You take his shoulder, Jack—­easy, yuh damned, awkward—­”

“Here comes Happy, with his hat full.  Don’t slosh it all on at once!  A little at a time’s better.  Get some on his head.”