She staggered up to them, panting, exhausted, her breath coming in gulping sobs. For a moment she could not speak. Her dress was torn; her waist was ripped so that it exposed her throat and shoulder; and the front of the waist and her face were stained with blood. Her black eyes shone like a madwoman's. Fiercely she fought to get her breath, and all the time she clung to Joanne, and looked at Aldous. She pointed toward the rocks—the chaotic upheaval that lay between the tepee and the chasm—and words broke gaspingly from her lips.
"They're coming!--coming!" she cried. "They killed Joe—murdered him—and they're coming—to kill you!" She clutched a hand to her breast, and then pointed with it to the mountain where MacDonald had gone. "They saw him go—and they sent two men to kill him; and the rest are coming through the rocks!" She turned sobbingly to Joanne. "They killed Joe," she moaned. "They killed Joe, and they're coming—for you!"
The emphasis on that final word struck like a blow in the ears of John Aldous.
"Run for the spruce!" he commanded. "Joanne, run!"
Marie had crumpled down in a moaning heap at Joanne's feet, and sat swaying with her face in her hands.
"They killed him—they murdered my Joe!" she was sobbing. "And it was my fault—my fault! I trapped him! I sold him! And, oh, my God, I loved him—I loved him!"
"Run, Joanne!" commanded Aldous a second time. "Run for the spruce!"
Instead of obeying him, Joanne knelt down beside Marie.
He went to speak again, but there came an interruption—a thing that was like the cold touch of lead in his own heart. From up on the mountain where the old mountaineer had walked into the face of death there came the sharp, splitting report of a rifle; and in that same instant it was followed by another and still a third—quick, stinging, whiplike reports—and he knew that not one of them had come from the gun of Donald MacDonald!
And then he saw that the rocks behind the tepee had become suddenly alive with men!