With a cry of relief, Alice rushed to the aid of the half-breed, and grasping the rope, threw her weight into the pull.  But her relief was short-lived, for when the forms in the water touched shore it was to brush against the side of the cut-bank with tea feet of perpendicular wall above them.  And worse than, that, unhardened to the wear of water, the bank was caving off in great chunks as the current gnawed at its base.  A section weighing tons let go with a roar only a few yards below, and Bat and the girl worked as neither had ever worked before to tow their burden upstream to the sloping bank.  But the force of the current and the conformation of the bank, which slanted outward at an angle that diminished the force of the pull by half, rendered their efforts in vain.

“You stan’ back!” ordered Bat sharply, as a section of earth gave way almost beneath their feet, but the girl paid no attention, and the two redoubled their efforts.

In the water, Endicott took in the situation at a glance.  He realized that the strain of the pull was more than the two could overcome.  Realized also that each moment added to the Jeopardy of the half-breed and the girl.  There was one chance—­and only one.  Relieved of his weight, the unresisting form of the Texan could be dragged to safety—­and he would take that chance.

“Non! Non!” The words were fairly hurled from the half-breed’s lips, as he seemed to divine what was passing in Endicott’s mind.  But Endicott gave no heed.  Deliberately he let go the rope and the next moment was whirled from sight, straight toward the seething vortex of the canyon, where the moonlight revealed dimly in the distance only a wild rush of lashing waters and the thrashing limbs of uprooted trees.

CHAPTER XII

TEX DOES SOME SCOUTING

The moon hung low over the peaks to the westward when the Texan opened his eyes.  For some moments he stared about him in bewilderment, his gaze travelling slowly from the slicker-clad form of the girl, who sat close beside him with her face buried in her arms, to the little group of horses that stood huddled dejectedly together.  With an effort he struggled to his elbow, and at the movement, the girl raised her head and turned a very white face toward him.

Shivering with cold, the Texan raised himself to a sitting posture.  “Where’s Bat?” he asked.  “An’ why ain’t he onsaddled those horses, an’ built a fire?  I’m froze stiff.”

“Bat has gone to—­to find Winthrop,” answered the girl, with a painful catch in her voice.  “He wouldn’t wait, and I had no matches, and yours were all wet, and I couldn’t loosen the cinches.”

Tex passed his hand over his forehead, as if trying to remember, and his fingers prodded tenderly at his jaw.  “I recollect bein’ in the water, an’ the pilgrim was there, an’ we were scrappin’ an’ he punched me in the jaw.  He carries a whallop up his sleeve like the kick of a mule.  But what we was scrappin’ about, an’ where he is now, an’ how I come here, is somethin’ I don’t savvy.”