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Rh open the door, entered, and returned bringing a short length of dynamite, a coil of prepared fuse, and a small spade.

Kneeling beside the boulder he dug busily for an instant, then lodged the stick, attached the fuse, and crawling on his belly to the edge of the cliff, looked down, to carefully calculate the length of the fuse by the distance of the party down below from the spot where the rock must fall. But while he was so engaged, and Marrophat aided him, all eager interest, Judith was taking advantage of their disregard of her.

Love had changed the nature of this woman. A fortnight since she would have applauded the scheme, callous to the hideousness of the end it was designed to compass. To-day … she felt a little faint and sick when she considered what might befall were she unable to give warning.

Unbuttoning her jacket, she slipped a playing-card from her pocket, a Trey of Hearts, and with a pencil scribbled on its face—"Danger! Go back!"

Then finding a bit of rock, she bound the card to it and approached the brink. Hopi Jim was meticulously shortening the fuse, Marrophat absorbed in watching him.

In the cañon below the three were within two minutes of the danger-point. It was no trick at all to drop the stone so that it fell within a dozen feet