ere is Surprise Valley?... How were you taken from Jane Withersteen
and Lassiter?... I know they're alive. But where?"

She seemed to turn to stone.

"Fay!--FAY LARKIN!... I KNOW YOU!" he cried, brokenly.

She slipped off the stone to her knees, swayed forward blindly with her
hands reaching out, her head falling back to let the moon fall full upon
the beautiful, snow-white, tragically convulsed face.

XIII. THE STORY OF SURPRISE VALLEY

"... Oh, I remember so well! Even now I dream of it sometimes. I hear
the roll and crash of falling rock--like thunder.... We rode and rode.
Then the horses fell. Uncle Jim took me in his arms and started up the
cliff. Mother Jane climbed close after us. They kept looking back. Down
there in the gray valley carne the Mormons. I see the first one now.
He rode a white horse. That was Tull. Oh, I remember so well! And I was
five or six years old.

"We climbed up and up and into dark canyon and wound in and out. Then
there was the narrow white trail, straight up, with the little cut
steps and the great, red, ruined walls. I looked down over Uncle Jim's
shoulder. I saw Mother Jane dragging herself up. Uncle Jim's blood
spotted the trail. He reached a flat place at the top and fell with me.
Mother Jane crawled up to us.

"Then she cried out and pointed. Tull was 'way below, climbing the
trail. His men came behind him. Uncle Jim went to a great, tall rock and
leaned against it. There was a bloody hole in his hand. He pushed
the rock. It rolled down, banging the loose walls. They crashed and
crashed--then all was terrible thunder and red smoke. I couldn't hear--I
couldn't see.

"Uncle Jim carried me down and down out of the dark and dust into a
beautiful valley all red and gold, with a wonderful arch of stone over
the entrance.

"I don't remember well what happened then for what seemed a long, long
time. I can feel how the place looked, but not so clear as it is now
in my dreams. I seem to see myself with the dogs, and with Mother Jane,
learning my letters, marking with red stone on the walls.

"But I remember now how I felt when I first understood we were shut in
for ever. Shut in Surprise Valley where Venters had lived so long. I
was glad. The Mormons would never get me. I was seven or eight years old
then. From that time all is clear in my mind.

"Venters had left supplies and tools and grain and cattle and burros, so
we had a good start to begin life there. He had kille