The Yukon Trail Part 7

"Yes."

"It's not just the thing to leave a lady in the rain when you take her for a walk, but it can't be helped. We'll laugh about it to-morrow."

Would they? she wondered, answering his smile faintly. Her courage was sapped. She wanted to cry out that he must not try the traverse, but she set her will not to make it harder for him.

He turned to the climb.

"You've forgotten your coat," she reminded.

"I'm traveling light this trip. You'd better slip it on before you get chilled."

Sheba knew he had left it on purpose for her.

Her fascinated eyes followed him while he moved out from the plateau across the face of the precipice. His hand had found a k.n.o.b of projecting feldspar and he was feeling with his right foot for a hold in some moss that grew in a crevice. He had none of the tools for climbing--no rope, no hatchet, none of the support of numbers. All the allies he could summon were his bare hands and feet, his resilient muscles, and his stout heart. To make it worse, the ice film from the rain coated every jutting inch of quartz with danger.

But he worked steadily forward, moving with the infinite caution of one who knows that there will be no chance to remedy later any mistake.

A slight error in judgment, the failure in response of any one of fifty muscles, would send him plunging down.

Occasionally he spoke to Sheba, but she volunteered no remarks. It was her part to wait and watch while he concentrated every faculty upon his task. He had come to an impa.s.se after crossing a dozen feet of the wall and was working up to get around a slab of granite which protruded, a convex barrier, from the surface of the cliff. It struck the girl that from a distance he must look like a fly on a pane of gla.s.s. Even to her, close as she was, that smooth rock surface looked impossible.

Her eye left him for an instant to sweep the gulf below. She gave a little cry, ran to his coat, and began to wave it. For the first time since Elliot had begun the traverse she took the initiative in speech.

"I see some people away over to the left, Mr. Elliot. I'm going to call to them." Her voice throbbed with hope.

But it was not her shouts or his, which would not have carried one tenth the distance, that reached the group in the valley. One of them caught a glimpse of the wildly waving coat. There was a consultation and two or three fluttered handkerchiefs in response. Presently they moved on.

Sheba could not believe her eyes. "They're not leaving us surely?" she gasped.

"That's what they're doing," answered Gordon grimly. "They think we're calling to them out of vanity to show them where we climbed."

"Oh!" She strangled a sob in her throat. Her heart was weighted as with lead.

"I'm going to make it. I think I see my way from here," her companion called across to her. "A fault runs to the foot of the stairway, if I can only do the next yard or two."

He did them, by throwing caution to the winds. An icy, rounded boulder projected above him out of reach. He unfastened his belt again and put the shoes, tied by the laces, around his neck. There was one way to get across to the ledge of the fault. He took hold of the two ends of the belt, crouched, and leaned forward on tiptoes toward the k.n.o.b. The loop of the belt slid over the ice-coated boss. There was no chance to draw back now, to test the hold he had gained. If the leather slipped he was lost. His body swung across the abyss and his feet landed on the little ledge beyond.

His shout of success came perhaps ten minutes later. "I've reached the stairway, Miss O'Neill. I'll try not to be long, but you'd better exercise to keep up the circulation. Don't worry, please. I'll be back before night."

"I'm so glad," she cried joyfully. "I was afraid for you. And I'll not worry a bit. Good-bye."

Elliot made his way up to the summit and ran along a footpath which brought him to a bridge across the mountain stream just above the falls.

The trail zigzagged down the turbulent little river close to the bank.

Before he had specialized on the short distances Gordon had been a cross-country runner. He was in fair condition and he covered the ground fast.

About a mile below the falls he met two men. One of them was Colby Macdonald. He carried a coil of rope over one shoulder. The big Alaskan explained that he had not been able to get it out of his head that perhaps the climbers who had waved at his party had been in difficulties. So he had got a rope from the cabin of an old miner and was on his way back to the falls.

The three climbed to the falls, crossed the bridge, and reached the top of the cliff.

"You know the lay of the land down there, Mr. Elliot. We'll lower you,"

decided Macdonald, who took command as a matter of course.

Gordon presently stood beside Sheba on the little plateau. She had quite recovered from the touch of hysteria that had attacked her courage.

The wind and the rain had whipped the color into her soft cheeks, had disarranged a little the crinkly, blue-black hair, wet tendrils of which nestled against her temples. The health and buoyancy of the girl were in the live eyes that met his eagerly.

"You weren't long," was all she said.

"I met them coming," he answered as he dropped the loop of the rope over her head and arranged it under her shoulders.

He showed her how to relieve part of the strain of the rope on her flesh by using her hands to lift.

"All ready?" Macdonald called from above.

"All ready," Elliot answered. To Sheba he said, "Hold tight."

The girl was swung from the ledge and rose jerkily in the air. She laughed gayly down at her friend below.

"It's fun."

Gordon followed her a couple of minutes later. She was waiting to give him a hand over the edge of the cliff.

"Miss O'Neill, this is Mr. Macdonald," he said, as soon as he had freed himself from the rope. "You are fellow pa.s.sengers on the Hannah."

Macdonald was looking at her straight and hard. "Your father's name--was it Farrell O'Neill?" he asked bluntly.

"Yes."

"I knew him."

The girl's eyes lit. "I'm glad, Mr. Macdonald. That's one reason I wanted to come to Alaska--to hear about my father's life here. Will you tell me?"

"Sometime. We must be going now to catch the boat--after I've had a look at the cliff this young man crawled across."

He turned away, abruptly it struck Elliot, and climbed down the natural stairway up which the young man had come. Presently he rejoined those above. Macdonald looked at Elliot with a new respect.

"You're in luck, my friend, that we're not carrying you from the foot of the cliff," he said dryly. "I wouldn't cross that rock wall for a hundred thousand dollars in cold cash."

"Nor I again," admitted Gordon with a laugh. "But we had either to homestead that plateau or vacate it. I preferred the latter."

Miss O'Neill's deep eyes looked at him. She was about to speak, then changed her mind.

CHAPTER VI

SHEBA SINGS--AND TWO MEN LISTEN

Elliot did not see Miss O'Neill next morning until she appeared in the dining-room for breakfast. He timed himself to get through so as to join her when she left. They strolled out to the deck together.