Very coolly he replaced the revolver in his breast pocket, then set about to release the girl from her uncomfortable position, telling himself that he ought to let her remain there until her senses returned, to see how brave she would be when she found herself hanging head downward over the chasm. Then another idea occurred to him, which he proceeded to put into execution. Laying Jess hurriedly down, he dragged the tree by main force forward, and hurled it across the yawning space. A cry of delight broke from his lips as it lodged securely upon a jutting point of rock some ten feet below, making a bridge, which spanned the chasm, quite as completely as though it had been fashioned by the hand of man. “Excellent!” cried Challoner. “Affairs could not have been adjusted more to my liking. I will win the girl through her love for romantic chivalry. By the means of this I have not the slightest doubt.” Coolly lifting the slight figure in his arms, he proceeded to convey her by way of a short cut through the grounds back to Blackheath Hall. The old housekeeper was on the porch when he reached the outer gate with his burden, and when he staggered up the broad walk and laid Jess at her feet, her cry of terror brought the household to the scene at once. To them Challoner, or John Dinsmore, as they called him, told the story which he had prepared for their ears, to the effect that as they were standing on the precipice, looking down on the foaming waters, as Jess had insisted upon doing, the girl had lost her balance, and had fallen over headforemost into the chasm. For an instant he had thought it was all over with her. Then, to his intense joy, he discovered her hanging by her skirts to a tree which had blown down and was lodged fully ten feet below. He had not waited an instant to consider what was best to be done, but, with the fixed determination to save Jess or die with her, he had plunged down to her rescue, succeeding in grasping her just as her garments were giving way. Then followed his recital of his terrible climb up that ten feet of slippery rock with his burden clasped close in his arms. One slip meant certain death for both, and, hardly realizing how he had accomplished it, he at last, by an almost superhuman effort, had succeeded in pulling himself and Jess up, thanking Heaven that the girl was unconscious, and had not realized the frightful danger through which she had passed. Mrs. Bryson, the old housekeeper, trembled like an aspen leaf as she listened; then her pent-up feelings broke forth into hysterical sobbing.