alt=""SO YOU THINK I'M A 'FRAID-CAT, MR. ELLIOT?""/> "SO YOU THINK I'M A 'FRAID-CAT, MR. ELLIOT?"
Gordon edged forward an inch or two farther. "Put your hand through the loop and catch hold of the leather above," he told her.
She did so, and at the same instant her foot slipped. The girl swung out into space suspended by one wrist. The muscles of Elliot hardened into steel as they responded to the strain. His body began to slide very slowly down the incline.
In a moment the acute danger was past. Sheba had found a hold with her feet and relieved somewhat the dead pull upon Elliot.
She had not voiced a cry, but the face that looked up into his was very white.
"Take your time," he said in a quiet, matter-of-fact way.
With his help she came close enough for him to reach her hand. After that it was only a moment before she knelt on the plateau beside him.
"Touch and go, wasn't it?" Sheba tried to smile, but the colorless lips told the young man she was still faint from the shock.
He knew he was going to reproach himself bitterly for having led her into such a risk, but he could not just now afford to waste his energies on regrets. Nor could he let her mind dwell on past dangers so long as there were future ones to be faced.
"You might have sprained your wrist," he said lightly as he rose to examine the cliff still to be negotiated.
Her dark eyes looked at him with quick surprise. "So I might," she answered dryly.
But his indifferent tone had the effect upon her of a plunge into cold water. It braced and stiffened her will. If he wanted to ignore the terrible danger through which she had passed, certainly she was not going to remind him of it.
Between where they stood and the summit of the cliff was another rock traverse. A kind of rough, natural stairway led down to a point opposite them. But before this could be reached thirty feet of granite must be crossed. The wall looked hazardous enough in all faith. It lay in the shade, and there were spots where a thin coating of ice covered the smooth slabs. But there was no other way up, and if the traverse could be made the rest was easy.
Gordon was mountaineer enough to know that the climb up is safer than the one back. The only possible way for them to go down the trough was for him to lower her by the belt until she found footing enough to go alone. He did not quite admit it to himself, but in his heart he doubted whether she could make it safely.
The alternative was the cliff face.
CHAPTER V
ACROSS THE TRAVERSE
Elliot took off his shoes and turned toward the traverse.
"Think I'll see if I can cross to that stairway. You had better wait here, Miss O'Neill, until we find out if it can be done."
His manner was casual, his voice studiously light.
Sheba looked across the cliff and down to the boulder bed two hundred feet below. "You can never do it in the world. Isn't there another way up?"
"No. The wall above us slopes out. I've got to cross to the stairway. If I make it I'm going to get a rope."
"Do you mean you're going back to town for one?"
"Yes."
Her eyes fastened to his in a long, unspoken question. She read the answer. He was afraid to have her try the trough again. To get back to town by way of their roundabout ascent would waste time. If he was going to rescue her before night, he must take the shortest cut, and that was across the face of the sheer cliff. For the first time she understood how serious was their plight.
"We can go back together by the trough, can't we?" But even as she asked, her heart sank at the thought of facing again that dizzy height. The moment of horror when she had thought herself lost had shaken her nerve.
"It would be difficult."
The glance of the girl swept again the face of the wall he must cross. It could not be done without a rope. Her fear-filled eyes came back to his.
"It's my fault. I made you come," she said in a low voice.
"Nonsense," he answered cheerfully. "There's no harm done. If I can't reach the stairway I can come back and go down by the trough."
Sheba assented doubtfully.
It had come on to drizzle again. The rain was fine and cold, almost a mist, and already it was forming a film of ice on the rocks.
"I can't take time to go back by the trough. The point is that I don't want you camped up here after night. There has been no sun on this side of the spur and in the chill of the evening it must get cold even in summer."
He was making his preparations as he talked. His coat he took off and threw down. His shoes he tied by the laces to his belt.
"I'll try not to be very long," he promised.
"It's God's will then, so it is," she sighed, relapsing into the vernacular.
Her voice was low and not very steady, for the heart of the girl was heavy. She knew she must not protest his decision. That was not the way to play the game. But somehow the salt had gone from their light-hearted adventure. She had become panicky from the moment when her feet had started the rubble in the trough and gone flying into the air. The gayety that had been the note of their tramp had given place to fears.
Elliot took her little hand in a warm, strong grip. "You're not going to be afraid. We'll work out all right, you know."
"Yes."
"It's not just the thing to leave a lady in the rain when you take her for a walk, but it can't be helped. We'll laugh about it to-morrow."
Would they? she wondered, answering his smile faintly. Her courage was sapped. She wanted to cry out that he must not try the traverse, but she set her will not to make it harder for him.
He turned to the climb.
"You've forgotten your coat," she reminded.
"I'm traveling light this trip. You'd better slip it on before you get chilled."
Sheba knew he had left it on purpose for her.
Her fascinated eyes followed him while he moved out from the plateau across the face of the precipice. His hand had found a knob of projecting feldspar and he was feeling with his right foot for a hold in some moss that grew in a crevice. He had none of the tools for climbing—no rope, no hatchet, none of the support of numbers. All the allies he could summon
