When Allison mounted Buckskin at Kate Cathrew’s door a terrible weight hung at her heart, yet a current of strength seemed flowing in her .  
“‘The Lord is the strength of my life,’” she thought , “‘of whom shall I be afraid?’”
 
The courage of the familiar words had been with her through many bitter trials—it did not fail her now.
 
But she was not conscious that she no longer called upon her for help to bear, to be patient under , or that she ran a hand along the muscle of her right arm testing its quality.
 
Rather there was in her that slow of which had swept away .
 
So she rode in silence with Provine’s eyes upon her from behind, and Big Basford in self-centered inattention ahead.
 
The way led close along the foot of Rainbow Cliff among the weathered which always down the rock face, and presently she was amazed to see the wall itself seem to slice in between Basford and herself, and in another second she was riding into a very narrow in the living stone with Provine close upon her horse’s heels. There was just room for horse and rider in the echoing and none to spare. It was dimly lighted by what seemed a crack in the earth’s surface high up among the clouds. The girl looked up in wonder.
 
This, she knew, was the secret of Rainbow Cliff and Mystery . Despite her danger she the passage with keen interest. The way was short for in a few minutes the rock-walled cut turned sharply to the right and ended .
 
Before her startled vision lay spread out a little paradise, round as a cup, green with tender grass, dotted with oak and poplar trees beside its springs—and grazing on its peculiarly rank was a band of cattle, each one of which bore on its left the “B. K.” of Bossick’s brand!
 
But stranger than all this was the straight high wall of stone which completely encircled the spot, with no opening other than the one through which she and her guard had entered.
 
This, then, was Rainbow’s Pot of which Arnold had spoken.
 
In utter she drew Buckskin up and looked at the “secret spot” of Sky Line .
 
It was fair to the eye, the ear and the , for the sunlight fell warm upon its farther side, the songs of a birds made music in the trees and the still air was with the of some nameless flower.
 
It was not until she had taken it all in with a slowly comprehensive glance that she became conscious of something strange in its formation, namely—the tendency of the green-clad floor to slope from all sides down to the center where there seemed to be a cave with an overhanging edge.
 
This hole was dark in the midst of the green with the late light upon it, like the entrance to some underground .
 
“Well,” said Provine amusedly, “how do you like it?”
 
The girl did not reply, but sat still with her hands crossed on her saddle horn.
 
The snaky eyes under the black brows lost their pleasantry.
 
“I wouldn’t advise you, purty,” he said, “to come the high-and-mighty with me. A little kindness, now, would go a long way towards an understandin’. Get off that horse.”
 
Without a word Nance obeyed.
 
A little cold touch was at her inmost heart, but that tight, tense feeling of strength was still with her. She measured Provine’s shoulders with her eyes as he unsaddled the animals and turned them out to graze. She looked at his long arms, his lean and back.
 
“I’ve handled my all spring,” she said to herself , “I pitched hay all day and was not too tired at night. I can lift a grain sack easy. I’ll sell out hard if I have to—for Mammy and Brand and Bud and Sonny.”
 
And when Provine turned and come toward her, smiling, he was met by blue eyes that were hard as shining stone, a mouth like a line of battle and hands clutched hard on folded arms.
 
“Oh, ho,” he said, “we’re goin’ to our head agin a wall, ain’t we? Cut it, kid, an’ kiss me—you might as well now as later. An’ besides, I don’t like a mouth all up from discipline.”
 
“The hand of God,” said the big girl stiffly, “is before my face. His host is round about me. I’d advise you to let me alone.”
 
The man threw back his head and laughed.
 
“I don’t see no host,” he said, “an’ I ain’t superstitious,” and with a leap he swung one long arm around her neck.
 
“Help me, Lord!” said Nance aloud, and bowing her young body she pulled her forehead down his breast and slipped free.
 
Next moment she had struck him in the mouth with all her might and followed through like any man.
 
Provine roared and swore and came for her again, head down and small eyes blazing.
 
“Now,” he said, “I’ll have to hand you discipline, you damned hell-cat!”
 
So the night that was so full of dropped down upon the country of the Deep Heart hills and Destiny rode the winds.
 
Sky Line Ranch was stirring early, even before the first grey light had touched the east.
 
There was much afoot. Bossick’s were going down the Pipe that day—and perhaps Sud Provine and Nance Allison would go with them, bound for the Big Bend country in Texas whence the man had hailed.
 
“I think she’ll sign this morning,” said Arnold easily as he sat down to Josefa’s steaming breakfast by lamplight, “and keep her mouth shut, too.”
 
In the shielding of pines Bossick waited for Fair’s signal somewhere inside the cliff.
 
Not so far down the great slope of Mystery Rod Stone was climbing up with the Cordova men behind him and Minnie Pine like his shadow at his side.
 
And deep in the heart of the earth Brand Fair was slowly forging upward toward that of justice for which he had so long and patiently.
 
There was excitement in him and and a certain grim joy, for he knew the man he wanted was at Sky Line Ranch and that he was about to lay upon him and Kate Cathrew the stern hand of the law.
 
Not least of the actors in the coming play, set to function on the stage of Rainbow’s Pot, was Bud Allison urging his horse slowly up toward Sky Line.
 
 
False dawn had come and passed. The short darkness following was shot now with pale light above the distant .
 
There was a cold breeze blowing when Arnold and Kate Cathrew rode along the rock face to the . They in low tones to Big Basford like an image and slipped into the wall. They rode in silence down the defile, dark as Erebus and full of wind, and came out into the amphitheatre where the pale light was breaking.
 
The trees stood like tall , humped and darkly draped.
 
Here and there on the sloping floor the cattle lay in quiet groups, while a little way apart Buckskin and Silvertip .
 
At first they saw no sign of anything human in all the shadowy place. Arnold’s keen eyes swept the Pot from side to side, while Cattle Kate’s went slowly round the wall.
 
“That’s funny,” said the man, “Provine——”
 
“Look,” said Kate, “over toward the left—against the cliff.”
 
The light in the east struck first at the western face of the , so that an object standing back against the surface got its full benefit.
 
Arnold forward in his saddle and looked long at this object.
 
It was very still, a point of in the shadows, and its very immobility gave it a certain grimness.
 
Then he touched his horse and rode forward.
 
“Good Lord!” he said as he pulled a distance from it, “Good Lord!”
 
For the object was Nance Allison—or what had been Nance Allison some few hours back.
 
Now it was a of a woman whose garments hung in fantastic upon her body, whose white skin shone through in many places and whose great eyes gleamed from her ghastly face with awful light. One long gold braid of hair hung from her head in a loop. The other was loose to its roots and swept in a flag to her . Long wisps of it shone here and there upon the grass around.
 
And over her from head to foot was blood—blood in and and splotches, while from a small on her temple a red stream slowly dripped.
 
The man was for once in his life.
 
“Heaven!” he said, “what have you done? Where’s Provine?”
 
“Dead, I hope,” said Nance Allison dully.
 
Arnold struck his horse and dashed away, riding here and there as if he must know the ghastly finish quickly.
 
For a while it seemed that the man was gone .
 
Then suddenly his horse shied from something moving in the deep grass by a spring and Arnold dismounted.
 
He had found Provine—Sud Provine rolling if agony, his face in the mud. With no gentle hand he grasped his shoulder and pulled him up.
 
“What’s all this?” he rasped. “What’s the matter with you?”
 
For answer Provine took his hands from the left side of his face and looked up at his master.
 
Arnold dropped him back with an oath, which Provine echoed.
 
“Gone!” he cried , “gouged—slick an’ clean! An’ she tried to get ’em both—damn her hussy’s soul!”
 
Arnold rode slowly back to where that caricature of a woman still stood by the wall. She seemed immovable as the rock itself, part and parcel of the waiting world and the grey shadows.
 
“You young hellion!” he through his teeth, “you have blinded my best man!”
 
“Have so,” said Nance, still in that dull voice, “yes—I have so.” She nodded her dishevelled head.
 
“Oh, what’s the use to fool with her!” cried Kate Cathrew furiously, “I’m done!”
 
With a of her unbridled temper she snatched her gun from its saddle-loops and flung it up.
 
As her finger curled on the trigger Arnold his horse against Bluefire.
 
“No!” he cried as the report rang out clear and sharp in the thin air of dawn. The bullet struck with a vicious “phwit” ten feet above its mark, and a little rain of rock dust fell on Nance’s hair.
 
From all the sides of Rainbow’s Pot that shot came back in echoes, a roaring fusillade—and Bossick, waiting in his clump of pines, straightened in his saddle. He picked up his hanging rein and spoke in a low Voice.
 
“Ready, men?” he asked, “then let’s go.”
 
Cattle Kate had fired her own signal of fate and her enemies heard it.
 
Brand Fair heard it in the strange dark passage far down in the heart of Mystery Ridge. Rod Stone, climbing the stiff slopes, heard it, and so did the boy on the staggering horse a little farther over toward Sky Line. He altered his course a bit toward the west.
 
“What do you mean?” said Arnold sharply, “would you kill her before she signs the paper? Or after—and have the finger of the law point at the new owner of the flats? Use your wits.”
 
“I have,” said Kate , “and have gotten nowhere. And she has defied me.”
 
“She has defied us all,” replied Arnold with reluctant , “she has been charmed, it seems.”
 
“Kill her—and the old woman will take the boy and go,” said Kate, “she’s the stubborn element. I warn you now—she must never go out of this place alive. She knows us now.”
 
“Unless she goes down the Pipe with this morning’s drive—the boys should soon be here to start.”
 
“She will come back.”
 
“Not if I send Basford to take her over the Line.”
 
“Enough!” said Kate, “I’m uneasy about the whole thing—the brushed-out tracks at the mouth of the Pipe——”
 
“A trifle. And the boys will soon be here. Hark—they’re coming now.”
 
There was a sound in the rock face, a shout and the of horses’ feet hurrping.
 
The man and the woman looked that way—to Big Basford come boiling from the narrow opening with a string of men behind him. The grey light had given place to the rose of sunrise, and the riders who came so swiftly out of the wall were plainly visible.
 
“Hell’s fire!” whispered Cattle Kate Cathrew.
 
Like a , Bossick and the ranchers behind him pushed Big Basford down the sloping floor of Rainbow’s Pot.
 
“A plant!” screamed the latter, “we’re caught! We’re caught!”
 
A hundred feet away Bossick stopped.
 
His angry eyes flashed over Arnold and the woman beside him, then scanned the green basin where the peaceful cattle lay.
 
“It would seem, Miss Cathrew,” he said, “that you are—caught. Caught with the goods at last. Yonder are my missing steers if I can read my own brand. It looks like the B Bar K to me.”
 
Kate Cathrew wet her lips and her hand moved restlessly on the rifle’s butt. She did not speak, but her black eyes burned like coals in her chalk-white face.
 
Bossick threw back his coat. A star shone faintly in the light.
 
“You can thank Sheriff Selwood’s tireless work for this,” he said, “and so can we. The whole country’s deputized. Your work is known. You may as well give up without a fuss for we——”
 
He stopped, for an odd sound had become apparent—a deep, echoing sound, as of many waters beating on a hollow shore.
 
It seemed to come from the center of the amphitheatre where the cave mouth yawned.
 
For a second the whole group was silent.
 
Then Kate Cathrew flung round to stare with wide at the mouth of the Pipe. Her world was falling about her and she was .
 
The roar of waters became the rumble of and up from the of the earth came Brand Fair and his men.
 
He blinked in the new light and then his dark eyes went unerringly to the face of the woman—this woman whom he had sought for two full years.
 
“Good morning, Katherine Fair,” he said.
 
Far over by the rock face Nance Allison leaned forward, in her rags and raised a hand slowly to her throat.
 
The dullness in her clouded brain struggled with her natural keenness for mastery and lost.
 
Up from the depths of physical which her came that spirit which had not yet been conquered.
 
“You!” screamed Cattle Kate, “You! You! It was you who did the trick—not that fool Selwood! I might have guessed!”
 
Fair sat still and looked at her and at the man beside her whose face was a study.
 
“Sure you might have guessed,” he said. “When you and your paramour there robbed the and wound the coils of around Fair—you might have guessed that his brother would follow you to the ends of the earth to get you. And he’s got you—got you dead to rights.”
 
He, too, showed a deputy’s star.
 
“Jack Fair died in prison—of shame and of a broken heart. For three years I worked in New York to get the goods on you, Arnold, and never could—definitely. Then I hired a better man who could—and did. I have a precious package in a safe place with enough proof in it to have sent you over long ago—but I wanted you both—together—a grand finale. It has been a long trail—long—for me—and for Sonny, the child whom you abandoned, Kate, five years ago.”
 
The woman and raised a fist to let it fall in impotent rage. Fair went on.
 
“I’ve lived for months in Blue Stone Cañon. It was I who found where the blow out from the wall. It was Sheriff Selwood who took his life in his hand to help your men drive Bossick’s steers into Rainbow Cliff. It was all of us together, as you see us here, who put two and two together and to get you—and to get you good—you and all your of rustlers—all of whom owe somethin............