He lashed the two canvas rolls together, swung them up to his shoulders, took frying-pan, coffee-pot, and rifle in his free hand, and nodded toward the small pack of provisions which had been left over from lunch.  “Better bring those,” he advised briefly.  “There’s no telling what may be in the cards.”  He went on along the knife-edge of the ridge, down into a little depression, up beyond.  She hesitated, saw that he had not looked, bit her lip angrily, and snatched up the parcel.  Then she followed him, stooping against the wind.

When she came up with him he had thrown down his pack at the very edge of the gorge.  She came to his side, leaned forward, and looked down.  Far below plunged the wildest torrent she had ever seen; it hurled itself in mad haste between boulders; it shot down over dizzy falls; it made for itself a white mantle of frothing waters; it looked as black as ebony in sections of smoother channel and as cold as death; it spun in whirlpools, it filled the air with its din.  And King meant to go down to it; to cross it; to climb the dizzy cliff upon the further side!  She knew from his look, without asking.  For just across the chasm from them in the highest of the cliffs was the yawning black-mouthed place of horrors.  If one slipped on those bare rocks, clambering down or climbing on the further side!  She sat down suddenly; now when her lip was caught between her teeth it was to fight back the tears.  The world was so cold and stern and brutal; this man was so much like the environment; she was so woefully, desperately heart-sick.  On this lofty crest of a devil-tossed land she felt the insignificance of a fly clinging to the brow of an abyss.

King went about his task methodically.  Gloria watched him rather than look across the rocky gorges.  Slowly and with difficulty he made his way down the steep wall of rocks, dragging and pulling the roll of bedding and provisions after him.  It required perhaps twenty minutes for him to get to the bottom.  She wondered where he would attempt a crossing; the water looked so black in the pools, so violent over the rapids.  He went up-stream; there lay an old cedar log so that it spanned the current, its sturdy old trunk ten feet above the water.  For a moment King disappeared under an out-thrust ledge; then she saw him again, the pack on his shoulders.  He had climbed up to the top of the log; he was crossing.  Where he went now she must follow!

Fascinated, she watched him.  Once she thought he was going to fall.  But unerringly he trod the rude bridge underfoot, gained the other side without mishap, tossed down his bundle, and lowered himself from the log after it.  Gloria marvelled at him; she could see his face and it was impassive.  Could he not hear the hostile voices of the raging waters?  Could he not feel the ominous threat of the bleak day and the monster cliffs?  Was he a man without imagination as he seemed to be without fear?

On he went, down-stream again, clinging to the steep pitch of the gorge, until he was almost under the mouth of the cavern.  He put back his head and looked up; it was a hundred feet above him and the cliffs, from where Gloria sat numb with cold and dread, looked unsurmountable.  Yet he was going up them!