untains,
showed that there had been recent rains. These all ran into the Del Oro,
a creek which was dry in summer but was now full to its banks.

She followed the river into the canon of the same name, a narrow gulch
with sheer precipitous walls. So much water was in the river that the
trail along the bank scarce gave the pony footing. Half a mile from the
point where she had entered the Del Oro the trail crept up the wall and
escaped to the mesa above. Phyllis was nearing the ascent when a sound
startled her. She swung round in her saddle, to see a wall of water
roaring down the lane with the leap of some terrible wild beast.
Somewhere in the hills there had been a waterspout.

She called upon her pony with spur and voice, racing desperately for the
place where the trail rose. Of that wild dash for life she remembered
nothing afterward save the overmastering sense of peril. She knew that
the roan was pounding forward with the best speed in him, and presently
she knew too that no speed could save her. The roar of the advancing
water grew louder as it swept upon her. With a cry of terror she dragged
the pony to its haunches, slipped from the saddle, and attempted to
climb the rock face.

Catching hold of outcropping ledges, mesquit, and even cactus bushes,
she went up like a mountain goat But the water swept upon her, waist
high, and dragged at her. She clung to a quartz knob her fingers had
found, but her feet were swept from her by the suction of the torrent.
Her hold relaxed, and she slid back into the river.

Like a flash of light a rope descended over her outstretched arms,
tightened at her waist, and held her taut. She felt the pain of a
tremendous tug that seemed to tear her in two. Dimly her brain reported
that somebody was shouting. A long time afterward, as it seemed to her
then, a strong arm went round her. Inch by inch she was dragged from the
water that fought and wrestled for her. Phyllis knew that her rescuer
was working up the cliff wall with her. Then her perceptions blurred.

"I'll never make it this way," he told himself aloud, half way up.

In fact, he had come to an _impasse_. Even without the burden of her
weight, the sheer smooth wall rose insurmountable above him. He did the
one thing left for him to do. Leaving her unconscious body in a sort of
trough formed by the juncture of two strata, he lowered himself into the
rushing stream, searched with his foot for a grip, and swung to the left
in