“To find a girl,” she whispered.
“I've found her!”
She began to shake. He saw a white hand go to her breast.
“Where is Surprise Valley?... How were you taken from Jane Withersteen and Lassiter?... I know they're alive. But where?”
She seemed to turn to stone.
“Fay!—FAY LARKIN!... I KNOW YOU!” he cried, brokenly.
She slipped off the stone to her knees, swayed forward blindly with her hands reaching out, her head falling back to let the moon fall full upon the beautiful, snow-white, tragically convulsed face.
XIII. THE STORY OF SURPRISE VALLEY
“... Oh, I remember so well! Even now I dream of it sometimes. I hear the roll and crash of falling rock—like thunder.... We rode and rode. Then the horses fell. Uncle Jim took me in his arms and started up the cliff. Mother Jane climbed close after us. They kept looking back. Down there in the gray valley came the Mormons. I see the first one now. He rode a white horse. That was Tull. Oh, I remember so well! And I was five or six years old.