Part 5 (2/2)

A bit of stiff climbing brought them to a boulder field back of which rose a mountain ridge.

”We've got off the trail somehow,” Elliot said. ”But I don't suppose it matters. If we keep going we're bound to come to the waterfall.”

Beyond the boulder field the ridge rose sharply. Gordon looked a little dubiously at Sheba.

”Are you a good climber?”

As she stood in the sunpour, her cheeks flushed with exercise, he could see that her spirit courted adventure.

”I'm sure I must be,” she answered with a smile adorable. ”I believe I could do the Matterhorn to-day.”

Well up on the shoulder of the ridge they stopped to breathe. The distant noise of falling water came faintly to them.

”We're too far to the left--must have followed the wrong spur,” Elliot explained. ”Probably we can cut across the face of the mountain.”

Presently they came to an impa.s.se. The gulch between the two spurs terminated in a rock wall that fell almost sheer for two hundred feet.

The color in the cheeks beneath the eager eyes of the girl was warm.

”Let's try it,” she begged.

The young man had noticed that she was as sure-footed as a mountain goat and that she could stand on the edge of a precipice without dizziness.

The surface of the wall was broken. What it might be beyond he could not tell, but the first fifty feet was a bit of attractive and not too difficult rock traverse.

Now and again he made a suggestion to the young woman following him, but for the most part he trusted her to choose her own foot and hand holds. Her delicacy was silken strong. If she was slender, she was yet deep-bosomed. The movements of the girl were as certain as those of an experienced mountaineer.

The way grew more difficult. They had been following a ledge that narrowed till it ran out. Jutting k.n.o.bs of feldspar and stunted shrubs growing from crevices offered toe-grips instead of the even foothold of the rock shelf. As Gordon looked down at the dizzy fall beneath them his judgment told him they had better go back. He said as much to his companion.

The smile she flashed at him was delightfully provocative. It served to point the figure she borrowed from Gwen. ”So you think I'm a 'fraid-cat, Mr. Elliot?”

His inclination marched with hers. It was their first adventure together and he did not want to spoil it by undue caution. There really was not much danger yet so long as they were careful.

Gordon abandoned the traverse and followed an ascending crack in the wall. The going was hard. It called for endurance and muscle, as well as for a steady head and a sure foot. He looked down at the girl wedged between the slopes of the granite trough.

She read his thought. ”The old guard never surrenders, sir,” was her quick answer as she brushed in salute with the tips of her fingers a stray lock of hair.

The trough was worse than Elliot had expected. It had in it a good deal of loose rubble that started in small slides at the least pressure.

”Be very careful of your footing,” he called back anxiously.

A small gra.s.sy platform lay above the upper end of the trough, but the last dozen feet of the approach was a very difficult bit. Gordon took advantage of every least projection. He fought his way up with his back against one wall and his knees pressed to the other. Three feet short of the platform the rock walls became absolutely smooth. The climber could reach within a foot of the top.

”Are you stopped?” asked Sheba.

”Looks that way.”

A small pine projected from the edge of the shelf out over the precipice. It might be strong enough to bear his weight. It might not.

Gordon unbuckled his belt and threw one end over the trunk of the dwarf tree. Gingerly he tested it with his weight, then went up hand over hand and worked himself over the edge of the little plateau.

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