ledge. For an instant she hesitated, choked by the beating of her
heart. Should she cry out? Was it the man really coming? Her dry lips
parted, and then all at once a curious, slowly moving object barely
visible above the rocky shoulder that sheltered Lynch, startled her and
kept her silent.

In that first flash she had no idea what it was. Then abruptly the truth
came to her. It was the top of a man's Stetson. The ledge sloped upward,
and where she stood it was a good two feet higher than at the entrance. A
man was riding up the outer slope and, remembering the steepness of it,
Mary knew that, in a moment, more of him would come into view before he
became visible to Lynch.

White-faced, dry-lipped, she waited breathlessly. Now she could see the
entire hat. A second later she glimpsed the top of an ear, a bit of
forehead, a sweeping look of dark-brown hair--and her heart died suddenly
within her.

The man was Buck Green!

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE FIGHT ON THE LEDGE

In that instant of supreme horror, Mary Thorne found time to be thankful
that terror struck her momentarily dumb. For now, with lips parted and a
cry of warning trembling there, she saw that it was too late. Like a
pointer freezing to the scent, Lynch's whole body had stiffened; one hand
gripped the leveled Colt, a finger caressed the trigger. At this juncture
a cry would almost surely bring that tiny, muscular contraction which
might be fatal.

From behind the ledge Buck's hat had disappeared, and a faint creak of
saddle-leather told the girl that he had dismounted and by so doing must
have moved a trifle out of range.

Sick with horror and desperation, the girl's eye fell upon a stone lying
at her feet--a jagged piece of granite perhaps twice the size of a
baseball. In a flash she dropped the bridle-reins and, bending, caught it
up stealthily. Freckles pricked his ears forward, but with a fleeting,
imploring touch of one hand against his sweaty neck, Mary steadied herself
for a moment, slowly drew back her arm, and, with a fervent, silent
prayer for strength, she hurled the stone.

It grazed Lynch's face and struck his wrist with a force that jerked up
the barrel of the revolver. The spurt of flame, the sharp crack of the
shot, the clatter of the Colt striking the edge of the precipice, all
seemed to the girl to come simultaneously. A belated second afterward
Lynch's furious curses came to her. With dilated eyes she saw him snatch
franticall