ll calmly.
"Move it about ten feet."

It began to approach him jerkily. It halted, then once more it moved.
The shrub in his grasp gave out an inch, and was coming from its
anchorage. Then his fist was closed on the rope.

"All right!" he called. "Let go--and stand aside!"

"But--oh, if the rock shouldn't hold!" cried the girl. "Are you sure
it won't pull over?"

He was not at all certain of the boulder. This explained his
directions, "stand aside!" If it came--it must not involve the girl.
There was nothing for him but to trust to its weight against his own.
He was strong. He began to come up, bracing a foot against the
crumbling wall, winding the rope around one of his legs--or his leg
around the rope, and resting whensoever he could.

Beth stood there, nearly as tense as the rope. Her brown eyes were
fixed on the bedded boulder; her face was more gray than its bulk.

At the edge, where the lasso impinged upon the granite, small particles
were breaking and falling ominously. Scarcely daring to breathe, as
she felt how the man was toiling up from the maw of the chasm, Beth
could not bear to look where he must come--if come he ever should.

It seemed an eternity of waiting. At last, when new misgivings had
seized upon her heart, she heard his labored breathing. Even then she
did not turn. She feared to watch his efforts; she feared to break the
spell. A minute later she heard his even voice.

"It's a wonderful view--from down below."

The glad, eager light in her eyes, which his eyes met from the brink,
put strength in both his arms. He came up to safety in an outburst of
vigor that was nothing short of magnificent.

"Oh!" said the girl, and she leaned against the wall in a sudden need
for support.

"I really had no intention of--deserting like that," panted Van, with a
smile that was just a trifle forced. "But it's so much easier to--drop
into a habit than it--ever is to get out."

She made no reply, but remained where she was, weakly leaning against
the wall and slowly regaining the strength she had lost at the moment
of beholding him safe. She was not the fainting kind, but she was
human--womanly human.

Van began immediately to release and re-coil the rope.

"Too bad to throw away a pony like that," he resumed regretfully. "I
always intended, if he died a Christian death, to have his hide tanned
for a rug."

He was saying anything, no matter what, to dissipate the reactionary
col