ut both her hands.

"I'm all right," she chattered. "Give me a minute."

Judge Whiting came to them.

"I am getting away immediately," he said. "I must reach Louise and
Mother before they get word of this. Doctor Fleming will take care of
Donald all right. What happened, Linda? Can you tell me?"

Linda opened her lips and tried to speak, but she was too breathless,
too full of excitement, to be coherent. To her amazement Katherine
O'Donovan scrambled to her feet, lifted her head and faced the Judge.
She pointed to the fireplace.

"I was right there, busy with me cookie' utensils," she said, "Miss
Linda was a-sittin, on that exact spot, they jist havin finished atin'
some of her haythen messes; and the lad was lyin, square where the
boulder struck, on the Indian blanket, atin' a pace of cactus candy. And
jist one pebble came rattlin' down, but Miss Linda happened to be
lookin', and she scramed to the b'y to be rollin' under where ye found
him; so he gave a flop or two, and it's well that he took his orders
without waitin' to ask the raison for them, for if he had, at the
prisint minute he would be about as thick as a shate of writing paper.
The thing dropped clear and straight and drove itself into the earth and
stone below it, as ye see."

Katherine O'Donovan paused.

"Yes," said the Judge. "Anything else?"

"Miss Linda got to him and she made sure he had brathin' space and he
wasn't hurt bad, and then she told him he had got to stand it, because,
sittin' where she did, she faced the cliff and she thought she had seen
someone. She took the telescope and started climbin', and I took the axe
and I started climbin' after her."

Katy broke down and emitted a weird Irish howl. Linda instantly braced
herself, threw her arms around Katy, and drew her head to her shoulder.
She looked at Judge Whiting and began to talk.

"I can show you where she followed me, straight up the face of the
canyon, almost," she said. "And she never had tried to climb a canyon
side for a yard, either, but she came up and over after me, like a cat.
And up there on a small ledge Oka Sayye came down directly above us. I
couldn't be mistaken. I saw him plainly. I know him by sight as well as
I do any of you. We heard the stones coming down before him, and we knew
someone was going to be on us who was desperate enough to kill. When he
touched our level and turned to follow the ledge we were on, I pushed
him over."

Katy shook off Linda's pro