written to Jim and made him an offer for the whole place, yet he can
buy other land near us without any trouble, for Wyoming is rich in
land." Jack was talking as fast as possible, trying not to see the
storm of tears pouring down Elizabeth's cheeks.

"Then you positively _won't_ sell the land, Jack?" Elizabeth
interrupted. "I might have known you didn't really care for me and
wouldn't wish me to live near you for even a part of the year," she
protested bitterly. "And please don't preach anymore, for I can see very
plainly now that you are not the kind of a girl who can be relied on to
keep her word. I would rather you would not stay here with me. I can
manage in some way to get down the hill. I certainly shall not let you
touch me."

The two girls were seated near the edge of a rocky embankment which
dropped down into terraced ledges of stone twenty, then thirty, then
forty feet below. On the other side, toward the right, the hill sloped
far more gradually and a road had been cut leading to the hotel.

Elizabeth was so angry that she got on her feet before Jack fully
realized what she was doing. Then, as Jack made a detaining clutch at
her, she lurched away toward the left near the jagged precipice. All
about the neighborhood of the Falls, where the ground was uncertain,
signs were set up bearing the word "dangerous." Jack saw in a moment of
horror that Elizabeth was tottering toward one of these places. Whether
she screamed or not she did not know. But Elizabeth was crying and could
not see the sign, and if she heard, she was not strong enough to stop
her course instantly. As Jack ran toward her the loose earth crumbled
beneath Elizabeth's feet and she slid half over the precipice. But since
self-preservation is strong in all of us, she caught with desperate
hands at some low shrubs above her head and hung with only half her body
over the cliff. "Jack!" she called just once, and was silent, putting
all her strength in her clinging hands.

It is said that the drowning have a vision of all that has happened in
their past, as the water closes over them for the last time, but
Jacqueline Ralston had a vision of all the peril ahead of her as she saw
her friend's danger, and realized what she must do to try to save her.
Also she knew in this moment that this was her supreme chance to prove
she would do anything in her power for a friend.

Jack understood that she could not walk out on the ledge of loose earth,
which had