The answering fire of the beleaguered men died to silence. The dark, distant forms grew daring, ran from shelter and clustered at the foot of the slide, across the trail from the Blue Goose. Rambling shots, yells of defiance and triumph, broke from the gathering strikers. The shafts of sunlight had swept down the mountain, smiting hard the polished windows of the Blue Goose that blazed and flamed in their fierce glory.
Suddenly the clustered throng of strikers broke and fled. Cries of terror pierced the air.
"The cables! The cables!"
Overhead the black webs were sinking and rising with spiteful snaps that whirled the buckets in wild confusion and sent their heavy loads of ore crashing to the earth, five hundred feet below. Then, with a rushing, dragging sweep, buckets and cables whirled downward. Full on the Blue Goose the tearing cables fell, dragging it to earth, a crushed and broken mass.
Morrison's emissaries had done their work well. The tram-house at the mine had been blown up. They had accomplished more than he had hoped for. Pierre was in the bar-room when the cables fell. He had no time to escape, even had he seen or known.
Momentarily forgetful, the strikers swarmed around the fallen building, tearing aside crushed timbers, tugging at the snarled cable, if perchance some of their own were within the ruins. There came the spiteful spat of a solitary bullet, then a volley. With a yell of terror, the strikers broke and fled to the talus behind the saloon. They were now the pursued. They paused to fire no return shots. Stumbling, scrambling, dodging, through tangled scrub and sheltering thicket, down by the mill, down through the cañon, spurred by zipping bullets that clipped twigs and spat on stones around them; down by the Devil's Elbow they fled, till sheltering scrub made pursuit dangerous; then, unmolested, they scattered, one by one, in pairs, in groups, never to return.
Even yet the startled echoes were repeating to the peaceful mountains the tale of riot and death, but they bent not from their calm to the calm below that was looking up to them with the eyes of death. Set in its frame of splintered timbers, the body of Pierre rested, a ruined life in a ruined structure, and both still in death. Wide-open eyes stared from the swarthy face, the strained lips parted in a sardonic smile, showing for the last time the gleaming teeth. Morrison had triumphed, but the wide open eyes saw the triumph that was yet defeat. Far up on the mountain-side they looked and saw death pursuing death. They saw Morrison climbing higher and higher, saw him strain his eyes ever ahead, never behind, saw them rest on two figures, saw Morrison crouch behind a rock and a shimmer of light creep along the barrel of his levelled rifle. The eyes seemed eager as they rested on another figure above him that stretched forth a steady hand; saw jets of flame spring from two guns. Then they gleamed with a brighter light as they saw the rifle fall from Morrison's hand; saw Morrison straighten out, even as he lay, his face upturned and silent. That was all in life that Pierre cared to know. Perhaps the sun had changed, but the gleam of triumph in the staring eyes faded to the glaze of death.
Élise knew well the danger that went with her up the line. It laid strong hold upon her, as the loosened brake shot the bucket up the dizzy cable. As she was swept up higher and higher she could only hope and pray that the catastrophe which she knew was coming might be delayed until the level stretch above the Falls was reached, where the cables ran so near the ground she might descend in safety. She had given Joe the right number, and she knew that nothing short of death would keep him from heeding her words. She turned her thoughts to other things. Cautiously she raised her eyes above the rim of the bucket and scanned the winding trail. She saw men crouching behind boulders, but Firmstone was not in sight, and strength and courage returned. Her bucket swept up over the crest of the Falls, and her heart stood still, as it glided along swiftly, eating up the level distance to another rise. The saddle clipped over the sheave, swung for an instant, then stood still. She clambered out, down the low tower, then sped to the trail and waited.
She rose to her feet, as from behind a sheltered cliff Firmstone emerged, stern, erect, determined. He caught sight of Élise.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, fiercely.