CHAPTER XXXIX
The Man in the Shadow
TWO hundred feet if one he fell from the lip of the cliff. Then suddenly the Thing that had been Hopi Jim Slade was checked in its headlong descent by the outstanding trunk of a tree, over which it remained, doubled up, limp, horrible. …
The man who had compassed the bandit's death stepped back, thrust the weapon, still smoking, into the holster strapped to his thigh, and snatched up a case containing binoculars.
Not before the glasses were adjusted to his vision did he find time to respond absently to the inquiries of his two companions. Now the girl plucked at his sleeve, deflecting the glasses from the object which they were following so sedulously as it moved along the heights, a running horse with a woman bound upon its back, both sharply in silhouette against the burning blue.
"Alan," the girl demanded, "what is it? Why did you fire?"
"Judith," he affirmed with a look of poignant solicitude. "She's roped to the back of that crazy
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