“And where he goes you will follow.”  It was as though the wild waters below were chanting it into her ears and thereafter filling the gorge with the mockery of derisive laughter.

Slowly, tediously, but with never a sign of hesitation, King made his way up the cliff.  He had been here before; he knew and remembered every foothold and handhold.  Nor was the task the impossible one it looked from a distance.  There were cracks and crevices; there were seams of a harder material which, better withstanding the attacks of time, were thrust out beyond the general level; on them a man might stand.  There were spots of softer material, scooped out into pockets by wind and water; there were flinty splinters; there were places where the wall, looking from across the canon to be sheer and perpendicular, sloped more gently, and a man might crawl up them.

King had drawn up after him, stage after stage, the roll of bedding, using Blackie’s tie-rope to haul it up and to moor it briefly.  Gloria saw it swing at times like a huge, misshapen pendulum; watched it crawl up after him.  She saw the wind snatch at it and set it scraping back and forth when he let it dangle at rope’s end; she saw King’s coat flap in the wind.  Once she cried out aloud, thinking a second time that King was falling.  If he fell from that height—­if he were killed—­what then would be the fate of Gloria Gaynor!

But at length he came safely to the cave’s mouth.  He stood upright and looked about him.  Then he drew up to his feet the dangling roll; with it in his arms he was gone into that yawning hole.  She waited breathlessly for his return.  She saw him come again into the light; he had the rope in his hand, was coiling it.  He began to come down.  He was returning for her.

She did not stir while he made the slow descent, nor while he recrossed on the log and climbed the steep bank to her.

“I am going to spend the day up there,” he told her in his studied aloof manner.  “I’ll know soon enough now what truth there is in the story of Gus Ingle’s gold.  There’s room in the cave to sleep, and there’s shelter of a sort.  To-morrow morning, if I find nothing, I’ll start back with you.  If you care to come up now I’ll help you.”

“What else is there to do?” cried Gloria, with the first flash of passion.  “What else do you leave me?”

He slipped a loop of the rope about her waist, taking slow pains not to touch her with his hands, and turned downward again.  She followed, filled with sudden fear when they had climbed down ten feet, obeying him hastily when he commanded her to stand still or to move on, feeling her fear grow mightily as they progressed.  The wind, strengthening abruptly, tore at her in angry gusts.  She was panting and shaking visibly when finally she reached the log spanning the stream.  He was up before her, offering her his hand.  How she hated to touch it!  How she feared to follow him!  But her hand went into his, her steps