"
Once she stood erect, her hands at her belt, her elbows
widespread, and with narrowed eyes watched the youngsters. Her
lips were closed so tightly they wrinkled curiously as she turned
back to the fireplace.
"Nayther one of them fool kids has come to yet," she said to
herself, "and a mighty good thing it is that they haven't."
Linda was looking speculatively at Donald as he lay stretched on
the Indian blanket at the base of the cliff. And then, because
she was for ever busy with Nature, her eyes strayed above him up
the side of the cliff, noting the vegetation, the scarred rocks,
the sheer beauty of the canyon wall until they reached the top.
Then, for no reason at all, she sat looking steadily at a huge
boulder overhanging the edge of the cliff, and she was wondering
how many ages it had hung there and how many more it would hang,
poised almost in air, when a tiny pebble at its base loosened and
came rattling and bounding down the canyon face. Every nerve in
Linda tensed. She opened her mouth, but not a sound came. For a
breathless second she was paralyzed. Then she shrieked wildly:
"Donald, Donald, roll under the ledge! Quick, quick!"
She turned to Katy.
"Back, Katy, back!" she screamed. "That boulder is loose; it's
coming down!"
For months Donald Whiting had obeyed Linda implicitly and
instantly. He had moved with almost invisible speed at her
warning many times before. Sometimes it had been a venomous
snake, sometimes a yucca bayonet, sometimes poison vines, again
unsafe footing--in each case instant obedience had been the rule.
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