"Does it reach?" she cried. "Can you get it?"

He could not. Though sufficiently long it was ten feet away, on his
right. His seconds were growing fearfully precious.

"Just shift it over, more towards Elsa," he called, still calmly.
"Move it about ten feet."

It began to approach him jerkily. It halted, then once more it moved.
The shrub in his grasp gave out an inch, and was coming from its
anchorage. Then his fist was closed on the rope.

"All right!" he called. "Let go--and stand aside!"

"But--oh, if the rock shouldn't hold!" cried the girl. "Are you sure
it won't pull over?"

He was not at all certain of the boulder. This explained his
directions, "stand aside!" If it came--it must not involve the girl.
There was nothing for him but to trust to its weight against his own.
He was strong. He began to come up, bracing a foot against the
crumbling wall, winding the rope around one of his legs--or his leg
around the rope, and resting whensoever he could.

Beth stood there, nearly as tense as the rope. Her brown eyes were
fixed on the bedded boulder; her face was more gray than its bulk.

At the edge, where the lasso impinged upon the granite, small particles
were breaking and falling ominously. Scarcely daring to breathe, as
she felt how the man was toiling up from the maw of the chasm, Beth