mouth of the passing cut, was
never filled higher.

Starting at dusk from Corvan, Pete reached his destination around two
o'clock, filled his sacks, tied them on his mules and started down,
coming out of the Rockface in time to meet the dawn that quivered on
the eastern ramparts.

But this night Old Pete, sturdy, fearless, unarmed, was not to see the
accustomed pageant of the rising sun, the fleeing veils of shadows
shifting on the Valley floor that he had watched with silent joy for
all these years.

This night he was well down along his backward way, shouting in the
darkness, for the slim moon had dropped down behind the lofty peaks
above, when all the echoes in the world, it seemed, let loose in the
canyons and all the weight of the universe itself came pressing hard
upon his dauntless heart with the crack of a gun.

"Th' price!" whispered Old Pete as he fell sprawling on his face, "fer
pure flesh!" With which cryptic word he bade farewell to the sounding
passes, the tenets of manhood as he conceived them, the valour, and
the grumbling at life in general.

The little burros, placid and faithful, went on and saw the pageant of
the dawn from the hidden gateway in the Wall, crept down the Rockface,
single file, and at their accustomed hour stood at their accustomed
place before the Golden Cloud.

It was Wan Lee, Old Pete's _bete noir_, who found them there and ran
shouting through the crowd of belated players in the saloon's big
room, his pig-tail flying, his almond eyes popping, to upset a table
and batter on his master's door and scream that the "bullos" were
here, "allesame lone," and that there was blood all spattered on the
hind one's rump!

CHAPTER VIII

WHITE ELLEN

So old Pete, the snow-packer, had paid the price of gallantry. The
bullet he had averted from Tharon Last's young head that day in the
Golden Cloud but sheathed itself to wait for him. All the Valley knew
it. Not a soul beneath the Rockface but knew beyond a shadow of a
doubt who, or whose agents, had followed Pete that night to the Canon
Country. Whispers went flying about as usual, and as usual nothing
happened.

When the news of this came to Last's Holding the mistress sat down at
the big desk in the living room, laid her tawny head on her arms and
wept.

There was in her a new softness, a new feeling of misery--as if one
had wantonly killed a rollicking puppy before her eyes. Those tears
were Old Pete's requiem. She dried