He was on his feet at a bound, and, as she raised her voice in a startled cry for help, he plunged heavily at her, but slipped and fell in his own blood. Then the clattering jingle of spurred boots on the stone stairs below caught his ear. He was trapped, and he realized it. He slowly got to his feet. As Smith and Glenn appeared, springing out of the low-arched door, the muleteer Braun turned and faced them. There was a silence, then Glenn said, bitterly: "It’s you, is it, you dirty Dutchman!" "Hands up!" said Smith quietly. "Come on, now; it’s a case of ’Kamerad’ for yours." Braun did not move to comply with the demand. Gradually it dawned on them that the man was game. "Maryette!" he called; "where are you?" Smith said curiously: "What do you want with her, Braun?" "I want to speak to her." "Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn sullenly. The girl crept out of the shadows. Her face was ghastly. Braun looked at her with pallid scorn: "You little, ignorant fool," he said, "I’d have made you a better lover than you’ll ever have now!" He shrugged his square shoulders in contempt, turned without a glance at Smith and Glenn, and stepped outward into space. And as he fell there between sky and earth, hurtling downward under the stars, Glenn’s pistol flashed twice, killing his quarry in midair while falling. "Can you beat it?" he demanded hoarsely, turning on Smith. "Ain’t that me all over!--soft-hearted enough to do that skunk a kindness thataway!" But his youthful voice was shaking, and he stared at the edge of the abyss, listening to the far tumult now arising from the street below. "Did you shoot?" he inquired, controlling his nervous voice with an effort. "Naw," said Smith disgustedly. "... Now, Maryette, put one arm around my neck, and me and the Kid will take you down them stairs, because you look tired--kind o’ peeked and fussed, what with all this funny business going on----" "Oh, Steek! Steek!" she sobbed. "Oh, _mon ami_, Steek!" She began to cry bitterly. Smith picked her up in his arms. "What you need is sleep," he said very gently. But she shook her head: she had business to transact on her knees that night--business with the Mother of God that would take all night long--and many, many other sleepless nights; and many candles. She put her left arm around Smith’s neck and hid her tear-wet face on his shoulder. And, as he bore her out of the high tower and descended the unlighted, interminable stairs of stone, he heard her weeping against his breast and softly asking intercession in behalf of a dead young man who had tried to be to her a "Kamerad"--as he understood it--including the entire gamut, from amorous beast to fiend. ------------------