s heaved, catching a flash of sun on its dull hide.

Between the wheels of the wagon knelt a girl in a gown of faded blue,
head hidden behind a sunbonnet. She leaned forward in the shadow of the
wagon. Sandy caught a glimpse of a huddled body beyond her. Grit sat on
his haunches, head toward the road, thrown back at each bark. Sandy
reached the ledge first. The girl did not turn her head, though his
descent was noisy. He touched her gently on the shoulder, telling
himself that she was "just a kid."

She looked up, her face lined where tears had laned down through the
mask of dust. Now she was past crying. Her eyes met Sandy's pitifully,
holding neither surprise nor hope.

"He's dead." She seemed to be stating a fact long accepted.

"He's dead. An' he made me jump. You come too late, mister."

The man lay stretched out, head and shoulders hidden, his gaunt body
dressed in jeans, once blue, long since washed and sun-faded to the
green of turquoise matrix. The boots were rusty, patched. The wagon-bed,
toppling sidewise, had crashed down on his chest. Rock partly supported
the weight of it. Sandy picked up a gnarled hand, scarred, calloused and
shrunken, the hand of an old prospector.

"Yore dad?" he asked, kneeling by the girl.

"Yes." She stood up, slight and straight, with limbs and body just
curving into womanhood. "The hawsses was tuckered out," she said, "or
Dad c'ud have made it. They didn't have no strength left, 'thout food or
water. The damned road jest slid out from under. Dad made me jump. I
figgered he was goin' to, but his bad leg must have caught in the brake.
We slid over like water slides over a rock. He didn't have a
hell-chance." As she spoke them the oaths were merely emphasis. She
talked as had her father.

Sandy nodded.

"Got an ax with the outfit?" he asked. Then turning to Sam as the girl
went round to the back of the fallen wagon and fumbled about through
the rear opening of the canvas tilt: "Man's alive, Sam. Caught a flirt
of the pulse. Have to pry up the wagon. Git that bu'sted end of the
tongue."

The girl handed an ax to Sandy mutely, watching them as Sandy pried
loose the part of the tongue still bolted to the wagon, getting it clear
of the horses.

"Think you can drag out yore dad by the laigs when we lift the body of
the wagon?" he asked her. "May not be able to hold it more'n a few
seconds. May slip on us, the levers is pritty short."

She stooped, taking hold of a wrinkled b