," the
girl said. "I don't want to see him until I have to go in and help
carry him out."

She went off for the water, on her return setting the bucket by the
door. Then curious to see the place of Ed Sorenson's accident, she
wandered back along the trail to the ledge. There she beheld the
crumpled, fire-blackened remains of his automobile in a heap near the
stone wall. Apparently the car had first struck a small boulder, which
had flung Sorenson out on one side and forward, then leaping this hit
the ledge full force.

At the instant he must have been off the road and headed wrong, she
guessed. The rapid daybreak of the mountains had by now dispersed the
last dimness and indeed the crags far above were bright with sunshine.
She could plainly see the ruin that the machine was, fire having
completed what the smash had left undamaged, and the part of the rock
that was smoked by the flames, and was able to smell yet the reek of
burnt oil, varnish and rubber.

With the eyes of the curious she stared at the wreck, at the ledge, at
the ground, absorbed with simple speculations and filled with a sense
of awe. The machine must have made a big sound when it struck. It was
a lot of money gone quickly, that car. Not enough of it left to make
it worth hauling away. And so on and so on.

Then all at once her wandering regard detected something white in a
crevice between two stones. At first she thought it the gleam of a
bird or a chipmunk. The thing was some yards off from the spot where
she stood, but the flutter persisted. So she approached it to learn
its nature.

The thing was a paper. One corner of a sheet stuck up from the crack
in which it lay and was waved gently by the rising dawn breeze. She
drew it out and perceived it was fastened to other sheets that were
folded, all damp from the rain though not soaked because the cranny
had admitted little moisture. It was the last sheet which had come
partly unfolded, apparently as it fell, so was left in sight or she
would never have noticed the white flutter. This last sheet was blank,
but the others, neatly folded though wrinkled, were covered with
writing she saw on spreading them open. However, she could not read
the pages; the matter was typewritten, but it was not English. Some
foreign language, maybe.

If Mary could not read the document, she could at least logically
deduce how it had happened to be in its present resting-place. The
paper was here because the wrecked