me, 'Where's muvver Jane?'"

Without a fear or a tremor or a slip or a touch of Lassiter's hand Jane
Withersteen walked up that ladder of cut steps.

He pushed her round the corner of the wall. Fay lay, with wide staring
eyes, in the shade of a gloomy wall. The dogs waited. Lassiter picked
up the child and turned into a dark cleft. It zigzagged. It widened.
It opened. Jane was amazed at a wonderfully smooth and steep incline
leading up between ruined, splintered, toppling walls. A red haze
from the setting sun filled this passage. Lassiter climbed with slow,
measured steps, and blood dripped from him to make splotches on the
white stone. Jane tried not to step in his blood, but was compelled, for
she found no other footing. The saddle-bag began to drag her down; she
gasped for breath, she thought her heart was bursting. Slower, slower
yet the rider climbed, whistling as he breathed. The incline widened.
Huge pinnacles and monuments of stone stood alone, leaning fearfully.
Red sunset haze shone through cracks where the wall had split. Jane did
not look high, but she felt the overshadowing of broken rims above.
She felt that it was a fearful, menacing place. And she climbed on in
heartrending effort. And she fell beside Lassiter and Fay at the top of
the incline in a narrow, smooth divide.

He staggered to his feet--staggered to a huge, leaning rock that rested
on a small pedestal. He put his hand on it--the hand that had been shot
through--and Jane saw blood drip from the ragged hole. Then he fell.

"Jane--I--can't--do--it!" he whispered.

"What?"

"Roll the--stone!... All my--life I've loved--to roll stones--en' now
I--can't!"

"What of it? You talk strangely. Why roll that stone?"

"I planned to--fetch you here--to roll this stone. See! It'll smash the
crags--loosen the walls--close the outlet!"

As Jane Withersteen gazed down that long incline, walled in by crumbling
cliffs, awaiting only the slightest jar to make them fall asunder,
she saw Tull appear at the bottom and begin to climb. A rider followed
him--another--and another.

"See! Tull! The riders!"

"Yes--they'll get us--now."

"Why? Haven't you strength left to roll the stone?"

"Jane--it ain't that--I've lost my nerve!"

"You!... Lassiter!"

"I wanted to roll it--meant to--but I--can't. Venters's valley is down
behind here. We could--live there. But if I roll the stone--we're shut
in for always. I don't dare. I'm thinkin' of you!"

"Lassi