Natalie in the meantime, thankful to have something to do, had been piling stones as heavy as she could lift, on the rock behind him. She had torn the sling from her arm; and was using the weaker member to steady the other.

Garth, fearful that Grylls might succeed in flanking them at last, ordered her to climb up behind him; and without turning his head, told her how to make a little parapet along the top of the rock on the exposed side.

Garth finally got his chance. A little stone rolled down from Mabyn's hiding-place; and he instantly trained his gun on the spot. Mabyn, miscalculating, or losing his head, suddenly scurried for the next rock.

Garth had marked it. Mabyn gained it, but before he could pull his legs after him the rifle spoke. There was a scream of pain; and Mabyn's body, sliding from behind the rock, rolled and dropped heavily from stone to stone. A leg caught in a fissure and stayed him; he hung head downward, writhing in hideous, theatrical postures of agony, and screaming like a woman. Garth, thinking of Natalie, longed to send a shot to still the noise; but his hand was held by his promise to Rina.

It was all over in a minute after that. Grylls, careless of the other's fate, scrambled up from stone to stone. Garth peppered his course with bullets; but the rocks were scattered so thickly, Grylls needed to expose himself for scarcely a second at a time. He gained the trees at last.

An instant of terrible suspense succeeded. Garth made Natalie lie close under the little wall she had been building. He crouched over her, himself fully exposed, searching the hillside with strained eyes.

Suddenly he saw the bloated face not thirty yards away. Grylls had partly stepped from behind a tree and was deliberately taking aim. Garth sprang to his knees. The two guns spoke at once. Grylls pitched headfirst down the steep slope into view; and rolled down the bare rocks into the tiny stream.

"I've got him!" shouted Garth triumphantly.

Even as he spoke he toppled over sideways. Natalie clutched at him wildly; but his coat was pulled out of her grasp. He slid off the rock and dropped on the stones behind. In an instant she was at his side. He was already struggling to rise--his teeth pressed into his lip until the blood oozed between.

"Only my left shoulder," he muttered. "I can still shoot. There's Mary, yet. Help me up."

Somehow, with her aid, he managed to pull himself back on the rock, one arm dangling useless. Through his loophole, he saw Mary toiling openly up the ravine. He showed himself. At the sight of him the old woman paused and held out her hands as if inviting him to shoot. She had left her gun. When he made no offer to fire, she quietly continued her climb.

Garth watched her grimly.

Reaching Grylls's body, she unwound a woollen scarf from about her waist; and pa.s.sing it under his shoulders, partly hoisted his great bulk on her back with an incredible effort; and started down again. Grylls was quite dead; his heels thudded limply from stone to stone.

Long before she reached the bottom, Garth lost interest in her progress.

He had fainted.

Natalie, working to restore him, distracted, hopeless, crazed, suddenly heard a distant shout; and looking up distinguished a little cavalcade winding down the face of the great gorge. There was a red coat among them.

"Garth! We're saved! We're _saved_!" she cried to his unhearing ears.

XXV

EPILOGUE: SPOKEN BY CHARLEY

In the city of Winnipeg on a brilliant day toward the end of winter, a broad-shouldered, ruddy youth, with dancing blue eyes and a capacious smile, came running down a side street, and catching a certain fence-post at full speed, swung himself inside the gate with the dexterity of old practice; sprang up the steps and banged on the door.

It was opened questioningly by a little mouse of a woman, with great brown eyes, and gray strands mixing in her bright, brown hair.

The boy flung his arms around her like a bear. "Mother!" he cried breathlessly.

"Charley! My boy!" she gasped.

He picked her up bodily; and, kicking the door shut, carried her into the cheerful sitting room, where geraniums bloomed on the sunny window-sill, and a fire danced in the grate.

"I'm bigger than you are now!" he chuckled joyously. He put her in her chair; and waltzed about the room, touching the well-remembered objects.

"By Jolly! the very same pictures, the good old sofa!" he sang. "Oh, it's good to be home!"

The mother held out her arms. "My boy! My boy!" was all she could say.

Dropping to his knees, he embraced her again. "You dear old lady," he cried. "What a trouble I always was! It's your turn to have a good time now!"

"It's enough to have you back," she murmured.

He gyrated about the room again. "Say, I feel as giddy as a puppy after a bath! Imagine trolley-cars and baby-carriages and show windows and silver knives and forks after two years in the North. Say, I've clean forgot how to eat stylish!"

"How long are you going to stay?" she murmured.

He came to a stand beside her. "I'm not going back," he said in a deeper tone. "It's a bully country and I had a whale of a time--but I belong here! I'm going to take care of you now, and bring up the kids. I'm a man now,"--his face changed comically--"Don't laugh!" he begged. "I used to say that all the time; but it's different now; you'll see! I've had experience!"

She held out her arms to him again. "Tell me, my son," she whispered.

He dropped to the floor beside her; and laid his head against her knee.

There, in front of the fire, while the sun went down, and the early winter twilight gathered, he told her the story.

"When Garth rode away leaving me and Rina in the poplar bluff," he said--reaching that part in due course--"I didn't know much what was happening. But say, that Rina, she's an out-o'-sight nurse! She brought me around in great shape; and the second day afterward I was as peart as you please. That same day the fellows from the Crossing turned up; Jim Plaskett, the policeman, and three others. It was Jim made them come, soon as he heard the story. Jim's a peacherino! One of these lean, quiet chaps you can depend on; decent, too, clean-mouthed--Oh! Jim's looked up to, I can tell you!

"They wanted me to rest a while yet, till they came back. But they had plenty of spare horses, and Rina and I wouldn't stand for being left behind. We rode like sixty all next day, and camped only fifteen miles from Death River. We found the bones of Garth's horse on the way--picked clean; and the note he left every place he camped. You ought to have heard Jim Plaskett crack up Garth's pluck--and Jim knows!

"We reached the canyon about half-past six in the morning. I'd heard of that place from the Indians. Say, it was a fearsome spot! a kind of crooked, gaping split in the prairie like the pictures in Dante's Inferno. The walls were as bare and hard and cold as black ice; and way down in the bottom there was a horrible jelly-like water swirling around without making any noise. Seems if you couldn't breathe good when you got into the place! Minded me of the receiving vault in the cemetery.

"There was a risky little path going down, and we kept right on. Across the river, there was a break in the wall where a creek came down a steep, wild-looking ravine. At the bottom of it we could see a tepee and a tent; but no people. Some said they saw a body in the ravine, but you couldn't rightly make out."

Charley paused and shuddered. "Say, it was horrible!" he whispered.

"Glad I don't have dreams! When we got down near the water suddenly we saw old Mary Co-que-wasa come climbing over a heap of stones that was piled on the flat; and she was bent almost double, half lifting, half dragging a man by a rope under his arms. It was Nick Grylls. He looked dead.

"We shouted at her; and she looked up just once. I saw her face plain.

It wasn't surprised or glad or anything--just stupid like a breed. She never stopped walking. She stepped right off the flat rock into the deep water with the man on her back; and they went out of sight; and some bubbles came up."

He stopped, staring into the fire. His mother caught him to her breast.

"Oh, my son! what sights were these!" she murmured.

"Mary was a deep one!" Charley said slowly. "You couldn't tell about her! I never heard her open her mouth!

"We hustled down to the edge of the water," he resumed presently. "Jim Plaskett threw off his coat; and went in after them. But it was no use; the current carried them down; and it was too cold to stay in more than a minute or two. We never saw them again.

"Jim landed on the other side; and brought us back the raft that was there; and we all crossed. There was n.o.body in the tents--blankets in a heap, as if they'd sprung out of bed suddenly. We started to climb the ravine. It _was_ a body lying there on the rocks; it was Mabyn. Rina was halfway to it, before any of us saw. He wasn't dead; but had a bullet through both legs.

"Say that place was full of horrors! It stunk of gunpowder; and there was little thin layers of smoke hanging quiet between the walls. I was near out of my head, thinking what had become of them. We shouted all the time; and by and by we got a faint kind of an answer back. By Jolly!

I went up those rocks like a cat! I found them behind a whopping big rock. Garth was stretched out all b.l.o.o.d.y and she was trying to get his coat off; and she couldn't. She looked up at me with a face like chalk; and when she saw who it was, she just gave a little cry like a baby, and keeled over. Oh, it was pitiful! I carried her down to the river. I wouldn't let anybody else touch her.

"Well, to make a long story short, we decided to raft it down the river to Fort Ochre, instead of trying to win overland to the Crossing. Garth had a ball through his shoulder and a gashed hand; and Mabyn was pretty low. It was longer that way, but we could carry them comfortable.

"We built another raft and started next morning. Jim Plaskett, Mabyn and Rina went on the first; and Sandy Arkess, Garth, Natalie and I followed on the other. The other two fellows were to drive all the horses back over the prairie. Say, that was quite a journey! Garth was getting better; and we all felt pretty good, sitting round and swapping yarns, and looking at the scenery, while the current carried us down. When we got out of the gorge, coming down so quietly as we were, we saw any amount of game. Got a moose right on the bank! Gee! that was good meat!

And at night, say it was out o' sight! sitting there talking about going home, and watching the trees march past, and a bang-up show of Northern lights up above! It was pretty cold.