"
"So they are. But the game is up now."
"Yes." The scientist drew the sheet back over the dead woman. "I
suppose the sharp-shooters who did the job will report me safely
out of the way. It's only a question of when the burial party will
come for me."
"Then, why are we waiting?" cried Carroll.
"I couldn't leave her lying here," replied the other simply.
The sound of rhythmical labor came back to Carroll's memory.
"You were digging her grave?"
The other nodded. Carroll, stiffly, for his knifed arm was
painful, got out of his coat.
"Where's an extra spade?" he asked.
When their labor was over, and the leper laid beneath the leveled
soil, Carroll cut two branches from a near-by tree, trimmed them,
bound them in the form of a cross, and fixed the symbol firmly in
the earth at the dead woman's head.
"That was well thought of," said the scientist. "I'm afraid that
wouldn't have occurred to me."
"You can get word to Senor Raimonda?" asked Carroll.
His host nodded. A long silence followed. Carroll broke it:--
"Then there is no further secrecy about this?"
"About what?"
"Her identity.
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