m, was dislodging itself, was falling! At her cry
Landless raised his eyes, saw the threatening mass, caught her around
the waist, and with one supreme effort swung her out of the path of the
avalanche which descended the next moment, bearing him with it to the
ground beneath.

He was recalled to consciousness by the dash of water against his face,
and opened his eyes to behold Patricia bending over him, very white,
with tragic eyes, and lips pressed closely together. She had run to the
river, flowing through the sunshine a hundred yards away, for water,
which she had brought back in his cap, and she had taken the kerchief
from her neck, wet it, and laid it upon his forehead. Her hands were
torn and bleeding. He saw them and uttered an exclamation. "It is
nothing," she said; "I had to move the rock." Scarcely fully conscious
as yet, his eyes glanced from her to the great rock which lay upon one
side, and upon which there were bloodstains. "I have had a bad fall," he
said unsteadily, but with an attempt to speak lightly because of the
trouble in her eyes, "but it is over. Come! we must hurry on. We have no
time to lose."

As he spoke he strove to rise, but with the effort came a pang of
anguish, and he sank back, faint and sick, upon the ground.

"Ah! you cannot!" cried Patricia with a great sob in her voice. "It is
your foot. The rock fell upon it."

After a moment of lying with closed eyes, he sat up and with his knife
began to cut away the moccasin from the wounded limb. Presently he
looked up. "Yes, it is badly crushed. There is no doing anything with
it."

For many moments they gazed at each other in a despairing silence,
broken by Patricia's low, "What are we to do now?"

"We must go on," answered Landless. "It is death to stay here."

Holding by the bank against which he had leaned, he dragged himself up
and stood for an instant with eyes dark with pain; then, setting his
lips, took a step forward. The bronze of his face paled, and beads of
anguish stood upon his brow, but he took another step. Patricia, the
tears running down her cheeks, came to him and put his arm around her
shoulder. "I will be your crutch," she said, striving to smile. "I will
carry the gun, too."

Before them was a steeply sloping, grass-grown ascent rising to a broken
line of cliffs, scarred and gray, crowned with cedars and hung here and
there with crimson creepers, and with a chance medley of huge gray
boulders scattered about th