chasm--then the near edge, seemingly, to his startled gaze, right
under his horse's forefeet. He was dashing straight at the frightful
abyss.

A yell of terror burst from his lips, and he sought to fling himself
backwards and sideways out of the saddle. His instinctive purpose was
to fall to the ground and clutch the grass tufts. But in the same
moment that he tried to throw himself off, the nimble pony swerved to
the left so abruptly that the man's effort served only to keep himself
balanced on the saddle. Had he remained erect or flung himself to the
other side he must have been hurled off and down over the precipice.

Nor was the danger far from past. Carried on down the slope by the
momentum of their headlong rush, the plunging pony "skidded" to the
very brink of the precipice. Though the man shrank down and sought to
avert his face, he caught a glimpse of the black depths below them as,
snorting with fear, the pony wrenched himself around on the rim shelf
of the edge.

For an instant--an instant that was an age of sickening suspense to
his rider--the pony toppled. But before the man could shriek out his
horror, the agile beast had recovered his balance and was scrambling
around, away from the edge. He plunged a few yards up the slope, and
stopped, wheezing and blowing.

The man flung the reins over the pony's head and slipped to the
ground. For a minute or longer he lay outstretched, limp and
white-faced. When he looked up, the pony was stolidly cropping a tuft
of grass. Beasts are not often troubled with imagination. The hunter
remembered his brandy flask. After two long pulls at its contents, the
vivid coloring began to return to his cheeks.

He rose to his feet and walked down to a ledge on the brink of the
precipice with an air of bravado. But when he looked over into the
chasm, he quickly shrank back and crouched on his hands and knees.
Before again peering over he stretched himself out flat on the level
ledge and grasped an out-jutting point of rock.

Beneath his dizzy eyes the precipitous sides of the canyon dropped away
seemingly into the very bowels of the earth,--far down in sheer
unbroken walls of black rock for hundreds and thousands of feet. He
flattened closer to the rock on which he lay, and sought to pierce
with his gaze the blue-black shadows of the stupendous rift. Every
nerve in his body tingled; his ankles ached with the exquisite pain of
that overpowering sight.

The chasm was so narro