“Do you see where that shelf breaks abruptly?” he asked.  “It must be the side of a canyon.  Have you ever looked down?”

“I started to once.”

“I should not like to go over the pass again without seeing if this is really a canyon of any account.  I feel myself quite an authority on canyons.”

“It will be dark before we reach Little Rivers!” she protested.

“Ten minutes—­only a step!” and he was appealing in his boyish fashion to have his way.

“Nonsense!  Besides, I do not care for canyons.”

“You still fear, then, to look down from walls?  You—­”

And this decided her.  On another occasion she had gone to the precipice edge and faltered.  She would master her dizziness for once and all; he should not know from her any confession of a weakness which was purely of the imagination.

The point to which he had alluded was an immense overhanging slab of granite stratum deep set in the mountain side.  As they approached, a thrill of lightness and uncertainty was setting her limbs a-quiver.  Her elbow was touching his, her will driving her feet forward desperately.  Suddenly she was gazing down, down, down, into black depths which seemed calling irresistibly and melting her power of muscular volition, while he with another step was on the very edge, leaning over and smiling.  She dropped back convulsively.  He was all happy absorption in the face of that abyss.  How easy for him to topple over and go hurtling into the chasm!

“Don’t!” she gasped, and blindly tugged at his arm to draw him back.

As he looked around in surprise and inquiry, she withdrew her hand in a reaction against her familiarity, yet did not lower it, holding it out with fingers spread in expression of her horror.  Serenely he regarded her for a moment in her confusion and distress, and then, smiling, while the still light of confidence was in his eyes, he locked his arm in hers.  Before she could protest or resist he had drawn her to his side.

“It is just as safe as looking off the roof of a porch on to a flower garden,” he said.

And why she knew not, but the fact had come as something definite and settled:  she was no longer dizzy or uncertain.  Calmly, in the triumph of mind over fear, in the glory of a new sensation of power, she looked down into that gulf of shadows—­looked down for a thousand feet, where the narrowing, sheer walls merged into darkness.

From this pit to the blue above there was only infinite silence, with no movement but his pulse-beat which she could feel in his wrist distinctly.  He had her fast, a pawn of one of his impulses.  A shiver of revolt ran through her.  He had taken this liberty because she had shown weakness.  And she was not weak.  She had come to the precipice to prove that she was not.

“Thank you.  My little tremor of horror has passed,” she told him.  “I can stand without help, now.”