Slone roped the King, and holding hard, waited for the end.  They ran on, breaking, breaking.  Slone thought he would have to throw the King, for they were perilously near the deep cleft in the rim.  But Sage King went to his knees.

Slone leaped off just as Wildfire fell.  How the blade flashed that released Lucy!  She was wet from the horse’s sweat and foam.  She slid off into Slone’s arms, and he called her name.  Could she hear above that roar back there in the forest?  The pieces of rope hung to her wrists and Slone saw dark bruises, raw and bloody.  She fell against him.  Was she dead?  His heart contracted.  How white the face!  No; he saw her breast heave against his!  And he cried aloud, incoherently in his joy.  She was alive.  She was not badly hurt.  She stirred.  She plucked at him with nerveless hands.  She pressed close to him.  He heard a smothered voice, yet so full, so wonderful!

“Put—­your—­coat—­on me!” came somehow to his ears.

Slone started violently.  Abashed, shamed to realize he had forgotten she was half nude, he blindly tore off his coat, blindly folded it around her.

“Lin!  Lin!” she cried.

“Lucy—­Oh! are y-you—­” he replied, huskily.

“I’m not hurt.  I’m all right.”

“But that wretch, Joel.  He—­”

“He’d killed his father—­just a—­minute—­before you came.  I fought him!  Oh! . . .  But I’m all right. . . .  Did you—­”

“Wildfire ran him down—­smashed him. . . .  Lucy! this can’t be true. . . .  Yet I feel you!  Thank God!”

With her free hand Lucy returned his clasp.  She seemed to be strong.  It was a precious moment for Slone, in which he was uplifted beyond all dreams.

“Let me loose—­a second,” she said.  “I want to—­get in your coat.”

She laughed as he released her.  She laughed!  And Slone thrilled with unutterable sweetness at that laugh.

As he turned away he felt a swift wind, then a strange impact from an invisible force that staggered him, then the rend of flesh.  After that came the heavy report of a gun.

Slone fell.  He knew he had been shot.  Following the rending of his flesh came a hot agony.  It was in his shoulder, high up, and the dark, swift fear for his life was checked.

Lucy stood staring down at him, unable to comprehend, slowly paling.  Her hands clasped the coat round her.  Slone saw her, saw the edge of streaming clouds of smoke above her, saw on the cliff beyond the gorge two men, one with a smoking gun half leveled.

If Slone had been inattentive to his surroundings before, the sight of Cordts electrified him.

“Lucy! drop down! quick!”

“Oh, what’s happened?  You—­you—­”

“I’ve been shot.  Drop down, I tell you.  Get behind the horse an’ pull my rifle.”

“Shot!” exclaimed Lucy, blankly.

“Yes—­Yes. . . .  My God!  Lucy, he’s goin’ to shoot again!”