ight about them, it was
bright compared with the intense blackness of that profound abyss.
The girl caught his arm and shrank back from the edge.

"You will not fall? you are certain you will not fall?" she
whispered.

"I cannot fall," he answered with calm conviction. "He needs me. I am
going down to him. Besides, it will be easier with the lantern than if
I could see below."

"Do not uncover the light until you are down over the edge.--Wait!"

She stooped to knot the rope that he had brought up from the depths,
to the lariats with which he had been dragged up the last ledges. She
looped the end about his waist.

"There," she said. "I shall at least be able to help you down the
first fifty yards."

"God bless you and keep you! Good-by!" he murmured in a choking voice,
and he hastily crept down to slip over the first ledge of that
night-shrouded Cyclopean ladder.

"Lafe!" she whispered. "Surely you do not mean to go without first
telling me--I cannot let you go until--If you should fall! Wait,
dearest! Kiss me--tell me that you--Oh, if you should fall!"

"I will not fall; I cannot. Good-by!"

The dim white blotch of his face disappeared below the verge. The line
jerked through the girl's hands. She clutched it with frantic
strength and flung herself back with her feet braced against a point
of rock. After a moment of tense straining, the rope slackened, and
his voice came up to her over the ledge: "Pay out, please. It's all
right. I've found a crevice."

She eased off on the line a few inches at a time, but always keeping
it taut and always holding herself braced for a sudden jerk. At last
the end came into her hand. She had to lie out on the rim-rock and
call down to him. He called back in a tone of quiet assurance. The
line slackened. He had cast it loose. The lantern glowed out in the
blackness and showed him standing on a narrow shelf.

As Isobel bent lower to gaze at him, a frightful scream rang out above
the booming of the canyon. It was a shriek such as a woman would utter
in mortal fear. The girl drew back from the verge, her hair stiffening
with horror. Could it be possible that Genevieve had lost her way and
was wandering back to camp, and that Gowan--

Again the fearful scream pierced the air. Isobel looked quickly across
towards the far side of the canyon. She could see nothing, but she drew
in a deep sigh of relief. The second cry had told her that it was only
a mountain lion, over on the ot