A bluejay screamed derisively. Connie came to her feet, her face crimson. Donald stirred, opened his eyes, and painfully raised himself.
“I’m sorry, Connie,” he apologized, “it was very rude of me to go to sleep.”
A moment later he walked down the hill. Connie accompanied him a short distance, then turned up a steep path, and from a high, rocky ridge she watched his retreating figure as he turned toward the dam.
A huge bucket on a cable, that had been used during construction for carrying men and material across the roaring chasm below the falls, still hung above the boiling waters.
For Donald there was a certain thrill, a keen exhilaration, in swinging in mid-air in this crude conveyance. He stepped into the bucket and with his one good arm pulled it along the rusty cable.
The Breed, hidden near the trail, saw Donald as he walked toward the dam. The venomous look in his eyes gave place to one of strained interest as he saw the two men skulking menacingly after the unsuspecting man. With a feeling of malignant exultation, as he sensed disaster to the man he hated, he hobbled to the trail and furtively followed.
From the heights above Connie saw the sneaking figures as they crouched low against the edge of the dark spruces and at once divined their murderous object. For an instant she was paralyzed with terror. Her lips refused to move and her limbs grew numb.
The men moved cautiously as they approached their intended victim, fearing that he might be armed. As Hand saw Donald suspended over the river a look of fiendish elation crossed his features. Here was a chance to dispose of his enemy with no trace of the crime. He tore a fire-axe from the wall of the tool-house and ran to the swaying cable.
The Breed heard Connie’s piercing scream of terror above the sound of crashing waters. He glanced up to see her silhouetted against the blue sky, her arms waving frantically.
“Joe! Joe! Stop them! Stop them!”