There was a cold breeze blowing when Arnold and Kate Cathrew rode along the rock face to the Flange. They spoke in low tones to Big Basford standing like an image and slipped into the wall. They rode in silence down the defile, dark as Erebus and full of wind, and came out into the amphitheatre where the pale light was breaking. The trees stood like tall gnomes, humped and darkly draped. Here and there on the sloping floor the cattle lay in quiet groups, while a little way apart Buckskin and Silvertip browsed industriously. At first they saw no sign of anything human in all the shadowy place. Arnold’s keen eyes swept the Pot from side to side, while Cattle Kate’s went slowly round the wall. “That’s funny,” said the man, “Provine——” “Look,” said Kate, “over toward the left—against the cliff.” The light in the east struck first at the western face of the precipice, so that an object standing back against the perpendicular surface got its full benefit. Arnold bent forward in his saddle and looked long at this object. It was very still, a point of prominence in the shadows, and its very immobility gave it a certain grimness. Then he touched his horse and rode forward. “Good Lord!” he said as he pulled rein a distance from it, “Good Lord!” For the object was Nance Allison—or what had been Nance Allison some few hours back. Now it was a tragic wreck of a woman whose garments hung in fantastic shreds upon her body, whose white skin shone through in many places and whose great eyes gleamed from her ghastly face with awful light. One long gold braid of hair hung from her head in a dangling loop. The other was loose to its roots and swept in a ragged flag to her hip. Long wisps of it shone here and there upon the trampled grass around. And over her from head to foot was blood—blood in clots and streaks and splotches, while from a small gash on her temple a red stream slowly dripped. The man was awed for once in his relentless life. “Heaven!” he said, “what have you done? Where’s Provine?” “Dead, I hope,” said Nance Allison dully. Arnold struck his horse and dashed away, riding here and there as if he must know the ghastly finish quickly. For a while it seemed that the man was gone entirely. Then suddenly his horse shied from something moving in the deep grass by a spring and Arnold dismounted. He had found Provine—Sud Provine rolling in agony, his face in the mud. With no gentle hand he grasped his shoulder and pulled him up. “What’s all this?” he rasped. “What’s the matter with you?” For answer Provine took his hands from the left side of his face and looked up at his master. Arnold dropped him back with an oath, which Provine echoed. “Gone!” he cried hoarsely, “gouged—slick an’ clean! An’ she tried to get ’em both—damn her hussy’s soul!”