But she could not pause here. She kept the road along the ridge-top until she passed the Lutheran church, and then turned down the mountain-side again--into the dark forest again. The valley was behind her now; but it was there. When she faltered she closed her eyes and recalled it--the golden warmth of it and the serene promise of it. It helped her mightily over that last mile; helped her as she dipped down towards Big Laurel Cove--towards the dragon country. It was so she felt--like the lost maidens of the fairy books in the creepy land of devouring monsters. She was terrified, but under some spell she staggered on. The strain of the four miles was beginning to tell on her legs. And the tension was beginning to tell on her thoughts. She became more and more a prey to the vagaries of her excited imagination. A squirrel leaping from one bending oak branch to another made her start and clutch at her knife--the knife which all the way had lain like a bony hand against her white bosom. Then the clearing before Bud’s shack and the log crossing the stream, and beyond it--the crumpled form of Allston. She saw it from the roadway and took the last hundred yards in a series of bounding leaps like some frantic wild animal. CHAPTER XXIV At the sharp, staccato crack of Bud’s rifle Roxie had sprung from the cabin. She was out before Allston fell. But as he fell, she fell too. Her legs gave way and a dark cloud settled down upon her and she knew no more. From the rear of the spring-house Bud uttered an oath. For a second he thought he had made some dreadful mistake; that his bullet had gone home to her. Yet there in a heap and quite motionless lay Allston. His automatic had dropped from his lifeless fingers and fallen several feet away--quite out of reach. There was no shamming in that pose. But also, prone, lay Roxie. There was no shamming in her pose either. She had fallen face downward. Bud reloaded and ventured forth, his eyes first on Allston and then on Roxie. But strange to say he was more afraid to approach the latter than the former. Halfway to her side he stood motionless with the deepest, blackest fear he had ever known upon him. Fear had him by the throat--was strangling him with fiercer passion than Allston had done. His arms grew limp and his rifle dropped. He tottered forward, stopped, and went on again. Then the last ten feet he took at a run and knelt by her side. He turned her over. She did not resist. She was as passive as a child’s rag doll. And her face was white--chalky white. His eyes sought her bodice near the heart. There was no crimson stain there. That was what he had feared. He felt her hands. They were cold, but he caught a slow pulse-beat. It was as though he had been released from chains. She was not dead, and that was enough.