ur words," said Pete.

"Promise," my lady whispered, "there must be no murder."

"Tell her, Pete," said I, "there'll be no murder. I can't let her off
with that--give her fair warning."

Pete rode away slow.

"Wife," I whispered--we spoke in whispers, because it was the end of the
world to us two--"you trust me?"

She kissed my forehead.

"Tell me," she said, "one thing. Polly was not dead?"

"She shammed dead. She's alive, Kate. She's coming here. Take David
away. Take him to South Cave, to Father Jared's camp."

"What will you do?"

"Lock the house before it's defiled."

"And then, dear?"

"When she's gone, I'll come to the cave, too."

Kate took David, letting me kiss him, letting me kiss her, even knowing
everything, let me take her into my arms. She was very white, very
quiet. She even remembered to take her servant, and the two Chinamen,
making some excuse to get them away. I locked the house and the old
cabin. Then I made the long call to Ephrata, and went to the Apex Rock,
calling until he answered from among the dog-tooth violets. He climbed
straight up the steep rocks, whimpering, because I'd scarcely called him
once in fourteen months. He rubbed against me, forgetting he hefted
eleven hundred pounds, and I had to scratch his neck before we started
up to the house, then to the left along the wagon track just past
Cathedral Grove.

The wagon was swinging round the end of the grove at a canter, and when
I let out a yell for the last warning, the woman only snatched at the
driver's whip to flog the team faster. Then I turned loose my bear, he
rearing up nine feet or so to inspect that outfit.

The horses shied into the air, then off at a gallop straight for the
edge of the cliffs. The woman was shot out as the wagon overturned, the
driver caught for a moment while his wagon went to match-wood. He lay in
the wreckage stunned, but the horses went blind crazy, taking that
twelve hundred feet leap into the Fraser Rapids. So I had aimed, and as
I'd promised my lady to do no murder, I kept my bear beside me.

The driver was awake and staggering to his feet. He would have talked,
only my bear was with me, hard to hold by the roach hair. The man
needed no telling, and after he escaped from my ranch, I did not see him
there in the years which followed.

The woman, standing in the wreckage of her trunks, wanted to talk. We
herded her, Eph and I, to the foot of the pack-trail, which leads up by
steep ja