It seemed to them, waiting there, that what Latisan had undertaken was never going to happen. They were not checking off the time in minutes; for them time was standing still. The far grumble of waters in the gorge merely accentuated the hush--did not break upon the profound silence. When a chickadee lilted near at hand the men started nervously and the girl uttered a low cry; even a bird's note had power to trip their nervous tension. The sound for which they were waiting came to them at last. It was a sound with a thud in it! Listeners who possessed an imagination would have found a suggestion of the crash of the hammer of Thor upon the mountain top. "He looked big enough for that when he left us!" muttered the old man. He had never heard of the pagan divinity whom men called Thor. His mind was on the river gladiator who had declared that he would come down heavy on his heels when he started. The brooding opacity which wrapped the scene made the location of the sound uncertain; but it was up somewhere among the hills. The echoes battered to and fro between the cliffs. Before those echoes died the sound was repeated. "He's coming slow, but he's come sure!" Vittum voiced their thoughts. "Them's the footsteps of Latisan!" On they came! And as they thrust their force upon the upper ledges there was a little jump of the earth under the feet of those who stood and waited. There was something indescribably grim and bodeful in those isochronal batterings of the solid ground. The echoes distracted the thoughts--made the ominous center of the sounds a matter of doubt. That uncertainty intensified the threat of what was approaching the dam of Skulltree. There were other sounds, after a few moments. Rifles were cracking persistently; but it was manifestly random firing. The old man stepped to Lida and grasped her hand and held it. "Don't be 'feared for him, miss. They're only guessing! He'll be knowing the ledges--every lift of 'em that's betwixt him and them. They'll never get him with their popguns. But he'll get _them_!" he declared, with venom. "I wonder what Craig is thinking now, with his old bug eyes poking into that fog and doing him as much good as if he was stabbing a mill pond with his finger!" The rifle fire died away, after a desultory patter of shots. "They're running!" said one of the crew. "They must be on the run!" "You bet they're running," agreed the old man. "The Three C's hasn't got money enough to hire men, to stand up in front of what's tromping down toward Skulltree! Heavier and heavier on his heels!" Measuredly slow, inexorably persistent, progressed the footsteps of the giant blasts. Latisan's men needed no eye-proof in order to understand the method.