“About 7,000 feet drop, I think.  This is the top of the Pass.  We go down after we leave the precipice!  See—? the horses know it!  They are taking their top-turn rest.”

The two men glanced below.  In the shadowed depths, they could see the River tearing down a white fume, a pantherine thing leaping—­leaping—­; and the hollow roar of water filled the canyon with a quiver that was tangible.  Far below, the eagle flew lazily, lifting and falling to the throb of the canyon winds.  Suddenly, the air was cut by a piercing whistle.  Both men jumped.

“It’s only a marmot.”  The Ranger pointed over his shoulder to the little gray beast sitting on the face of the rock.  “Curious place, this Pass!  There is an echo here—­if it were not that we don’t want to announce ourselves, I’d let you hear it.  If you yell or sing, you can hear the thing dancing along that opposite wall—­Kind of uncanny, the echo voice, in the mist here sometimes.”

But the whistle of the marmot had also startled the horses.  The tired pack mule gave a hobbling jump and came to a stand.  A stone no larger than a horse-shoe kicked loose, tottered on the edge, and went bounding over.  It struck the tier of rock below with clattering echo, displaced another stone twice its size, then bounced—­bounced—­and a slither of slaty rock the size of a house wrenched out—­shot into mid-air with crash and sharp clappering echoes—­Then the Pass was filled with the thundering roll.  They saw it sink—­sink—­sink and fade, while the echo still rocketted amid the rock tops—­sink—­sink—­sink—­no larger than a spool in the purple shadows, till with a plunge it disappeared.

“Whew, it would be going if one went over.”  The old man mowed the sweat from his forehead and drew a breath.

On the instant, the hollow chasm of the canyon split to the crash of a rifle shot that rocketted and quaked and repeated in splintering echoes; and a bullet pinged at Wayland’s feet.

“That’s splitting the air for you—­Wayland.”

“Drop down, Sir,” urged the Ranger, pulling the old frontiersman to shelter of the upper rocks.  “They have come out above.  They have heard that cursed stone.  That’s only a chance shot to learn where we are.  They can’t come behind.  They have got to go down ahead—­”

“And the fat’s in the fire; for my rifle’s gone with the horse,” deplored the old man woefully; for mule and bronchos had galloped along the trail with the clatter of a cavalcade through the canyon.  Wayland handed the old man his own rifle and took the six shooter from his belt beneath the leather coat.

“They won’t understand this pursuit at all,” explained Wayland.  “Sheriff Flood is the guarantee of safety for any criminal in the country side.  They’ll think it a citizens’ posse.  Where this trail comes down at the end of the precipice is a crag.  Will you hide behind that, sir?  I’ll go above and head them down.  I’m not asking you to risk your life.  They’ll not see you till they gallop down.”