So this night he climbed and shouted to his burros and thought no more of the sounding splits, for here the echoes raved, than he would have thought of the open plains below.
He passed on and up to where a certain cut lay full, year after year, of packed and hardened snow. For fifteen years Old Pete had visited this cut, a deeper drop into the nether world of rock, and cut his supplies from its surface. Every season he took what he needed, leaving a widening circle at the edge from which he worked, where the cut he traveled passed the mouth of the pent cañon, and every year the snows, sifting from high above, leveled it again. There was no known outlet for this glacier-like pack, no sliding chance, yet it was always on a certain level--each summer seeming to lose just what it gained in winter. It lay level at the mouth of the passing cut, was never filled higher.
Starting at dusk from Corvan, Pete reached his destination around two o'clock, filled his sacks, tied them on his mules and started down, coming out of the Rockface in time to meet the dawn that quivered on the eastern ramparts.
But this night Old Pete, sturdy, fearless, unarmed, was not to see the accustomed pageant of the rising sun, the fleeing veils of shadows shifting on the Valley floor that he had watched with silent joy for all these years.
This night he was well down along his backward way, shouting in the darkness, for the slim moon had dropped down behind the lofty peaks above, when all the echoes in the world, it seemed, let loose in the cañons and all the weight of the universe itself came pressing hard upon his dauntless heart with the crack of a gun.
"Th' price!" whispered Old Pete as he fell sprawling on his face, "fer pure flesh!" With which cryptic word he bade farewell to the sounding passes, the tenets of manhood as he conceived them, the valour, and the grumbling at life in general.
The little burros, placid and faithful, went on and saw the pageant of the dawn from the hidden gateway in the Wall, crept down the Rockface, single file, and at their accustomed hour stood at their accustomed place before the Golden Cloud.
It was Wan Lee, Old Pete's _bête noir_, who found them there and ran shouting through the crowd of belated players in the saloon's big room, his pig-tail flying, his almond eyes popping, to upset a table and batter on his master's door and scream that the "bullos" were here, "allesame lone," and that there was blood all spattered on the hind one's rump!