When the snows melted in the high gulches of the Deep Hearts a little later, this place would be a roaring race. She thought of its foamy volume pouring from the cañon’s mouth to swell the flood of the Nameless a bit below her southern boundary. But it was a lone and lovely spot now, what with its peopled silence and its blue-toned walls. These things were passing through her mind as she watched the swirling sand, when all of a sudden, as if an invisible hand had brushed her, she became alert in every fibre. She had heard nothing new in the murmurous monotone, seen no shadow among the pale shadows about her, yet something had changed. Some different element had intruded itself into the stark elements of the place. Her skin rose in tiny prickles, she felt her muscles stiffen. She had lived in the face of menace so long that she was super-sensitive and had developed a seventh sense that was quick to the _nth_ degree. She stood for a moment gathering her powers, then she whirled in her tracks, sweeping the cañon’s width with eyes that missed nothing. They did not miss the movement which was almost too swift for sight—the dropping of some dark object behind a rock, the passing of a bit of plumy tail. The rock itself was between her and the broken foot of the wall, one of a mass that had tumbled from the weathered face. For a long time she stood very still, waiting, watching with unwinking eyes. Then, at the rock’s edge, but farther away, she caught another glimpse of that tail-tip. Its wearer was making for the wall-foot, keeping the rock between. A wolf would do so—but there was something about that bit of plume which did not spell wolf. It was tawny white, and it was more loosely haired, not of the exact quality of a wolf’s brush. Once more a tiny tip showed—and on a sudden daring impulse Nance Allison leaped for the rock, caught its top with both hands and peered over. With a snarl and a whirl the owner of the tail faced her in the low mouth of a cave, his pointed ears flat to his head, his feet spread wide apart, his back dropped, his jaws apart and ready, and round his outstretched neck there stood up in quivering defiance, the broad white ruff of a pure-bred Collie dog! The girl stared at him with open-mouthed amazement—and at the more astonishing thing which lay along the pebbled earth beneath him—for this was the thin little leg and foot of a small child. In utter silence and stillness she stood so, her hands on the rock’s top, and for all the length of time that she watched there was not a tremor of the little leg, nor a movement of the dog’s crouching body. The only motion in the tense picture was the ripple of the stream, the quiver of the lips drawn back from the gleaming fangs. When the tension became unbearable Nance spoke softly. “Come, boy,” she said, “come—boy—come.”