She released her hold on his clothing, now that he no longer had darkness for a friend. She followed him doggedly, fighting for strength to keep on her feet. Before they were halfway to the basin's edge, she was stumbling, and the trees were beginning to run grotesquely together like drunken monsters, and there was in her eyes a light closely akin to that of delirium. Mayfield knew that she soon would be completely exhausted, and upon this he was depending for his escape. Now and then he cast a sly glance over his shoulder, and with each succeeding glimpse of her his countenance grew a degree less heavy. When they had come to a point a hundred yards from the level ground of the basin's bottom, Mayfield halted suddenly and began to stare ahead of him. His captor thrust the muzzle of the revolver weakly against his back. Still he didn't move. His immobility was like that of an evil bird that a snake holds charmed. "Go on!" mumbled Tot. "Go on!" "Looky thar!" exclaimed Mayfield. He pointed. "What is it?" She saw that they were standing at the lower side of the family burying-ground of the Wolfes. "Thar!" Mayfield growled, pointing again. At last she saw. "It was you," she gasped, "that done it!" A thick, black mist was already settling down before her. She couldn't see anything at all now. Mayfield seized the revolver and tore it from her weakened grip. She made no attempt to recover it, for nothing mattered; the universe had become one great, dark void; it was finished. She staggered and fell prostrate, with her arms flung out helplessly. There she lay quite still, with the officer's shield pressed close to the earth and no more like a target, no more like a dare. In the basin below were two men, one of whom was mounted, who had been watching with rising interest the progress of the pair down the rugged slope of the Blackfern. They had recognized Tot and Mayfield only when the latter-named halted suddenly and pointed; captor and captive had come into plain view at that moment. Colonel Mason uttered an exclamation that was half-oath, and spurred his horse forward. The man on foot also was an elderly man, and he was tired and worn from days and nights of fruitless searching through the mountain wilderness. He thought that Mayfield had struck Tot down. He choked back a sob and cried out a whole oath instead, and ran, not toward his daughter, his one little girl, but after Cat-Eye Mayfield. The colonel dismounted and with infinite tenderness gathered Tot's limp body up from the new mound of black earth on which it had fallen. He shook his head sorrowfully, regretfully, at sight of the new slab of sandstone that had been put at the head of the mound only that morning. For on it had been chiseled crudely this pitiful inscription: _Hear Lays Little Buck Wolfe_ IX