ed the canoe, and Jeanne remained while he went for another
load. The dip, kept green by the water of a spring, was a pistol-shot
from the river. Philip looked back from the crest and saw Jeanne
leaning over the canoe. Then he descended into the meadow, whistling.
He had reached the packs when to his ears there seemed to come a sound
that rose faintly above the roar of the water in the chasm. He
straightened himself and listened.

"Philip! Philip!"

The cry came twice--his own name, piercing, agonizing, rising above the
thunder of the floods. He heard no more, but raced up the slope of the
dip. From the crest he stared down to where Jeanne had been. She was
gone. The canoe was gone. A terrible fear swept upon him, and for an
instant he turned faint. Jeanne's cry came to him again.

"Philip! Philip!"

Like a madman he dashed up the rocky trail to the chasm, calling to
Jeanne, shrieking to her, telling her that he was coming. He reached
the edge of the precipice and looked down. Below him was the canoe and
Jeanne. She was fighting futilely against the resistless flood; he saw
her paddle wrenched suddenly from her hands, and as it went swirling
beyond her reach she cried out his name again. Philip shouted, and the
girl's white face was turned up to him. Fifty yards ahead of her were
the first of the rocks. In another minute, even less, Jeanne would be
dashed to pieces before his eyes. Thoughts, swifter than light, flashed
through his mind. He could do nothing for her, for it seemed impossible
that any living creature could exist amid the maelstroms and rocks
ahead. And yet she was calling to him. She was reaching up her arms to
him. She had faith in him, even in the face of death.

"Philip! Philip!"

There was no M'SIEUR to that cry now, only a moaning, sobbing prayer
filled with his name.

"I'm coming, Jeanne!" he shouted. "I'm coming! Hold fast to the canoe!"

He ran ahead, stripping off his coat. A little below the first rocks a
stunted banskian grew out of an earthy fissure in the cliff, with its
lower branches dipping within a dozen feet of the stream. He climbed
out on this with the quickness of a squirrel, and hung to a limb with
both hands, ready to drop alongside the canoe. There was one chance,
and only one, of saving Jeanne. It was a chance out of a thousand--ten
thousand. If he could drop at the right moment, seize the stern of the
canoe, and make a rudder of himself, he could keep the craft from
turn