Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-27

use on the rope, was cl1ng1ng to the wall,
a smoking pistol at his feet.
The strain was terrific; a jutting cor
ner of the rock held his shoulder. His
mind seemed steadied, cast into smooth
grooves, where it worked frictionlessly
with fierce velocity. The pulling of the
trigger on the murderous breed had been
but an inCident-almost automatic. In
the moonlight he had recognized Dupre,
and even as the breed had vanished from
sight so he had vanished from kinnaird' S
mind
Coolly he faced the real problem his
chance of saving Cayuse George, or being
pulled over the precipice himself. With
let the loop slip over his hand, which was
now drawn across his chest by the strain
and save his own life. With a corner of
his shoulder wedged in little crevice of
the rock, and his feet braced on the as
tending path, he could hold the weight
that dangled over the cliff until he tired,
until the strain won out. To move per-
haps meant a plunge to death.
He raised his voice and yelled, Keep
still, Cayuse! III pull you through!'
The rock walls echoed his call; and
up from the gorge foated the snarl of the
cataract like note of derision.
Slowly Kinnaird turned his head and
looked backward along the ledge. Twenty
feet away the rock sloped from the narrow
path toward Mad Squaw Pool in droop-
ing shoulder of fifty feet. If, hugging the
wall, he could work backward, dragging
the mans weight till it struck that slope,
he could save him; but one inch of over
balancing pull and they would go down
together.
He weighed the chances, his eye rest
ing on the loop that cut at his wrist till
his clenched hand was cold in bloodless-
ness. To slip the strap was Cowardlce:
but on the other side was SO much, his
young, full life against that of man
whose teeth had been at his throat within
the half-hour.
Inwardly he cursed Cayuse. What
right had he to hang dead weight at the
end of his life that's what the strap rep
resented. his life? And yet he owed
Cayuse something the knife thrust had
been meant for himself.
Slowly he raised his right arm above
his head which lay against the cliff and
fingered the rock for a hold He clutched
a Jagged point and, bracing till his moe
casined feet seemed to cut into the ledge,
worked his body back the span of hand.
Then he wove his foot backward along
the path. AS the rope slipped in its new
angle the cliff seemed to fall away from
his shoulder inward; his body swung on
a pivot Beads of perspiration gushed
from his forehead Two seconds he
fought. He won. Again his head felt the
hard press of rock He rested as though
he had battled for an hour. There was
something of triumph in the infinitesimal
victory His mind whispered that he
could win out.
For half an hour he fought grim bat
tie on that narrow ledge. Inch by inch
the twenty feet were covered, his firing
strength offset by the increased slope to
the wall against which he chung His
own peril had been replaced by dread
that the strap might cut on the cliffs
edge; but it was shaganappv, rawhide,
as tough as whalebone.
A T last the strain fell away, as though
"A strong shoulders lifted Cayuse. The
dangling man now lay against the shelly
ing rock kinnaird drew him up to the
now wider trail, where he lay in an mani
mate sprawl A faint flutter of the heart
beat against kinnaird's searching hand;
blood dripped from his fingers, as he
drew them from beneath the buckskin
shirt and splashed a crimson trail across
the face SO CHASTITY white in the moon
1ipht and as he turned the buCkSkin coat