"There was no foothold in the cliffs on either hand that I could see, and the pounding of that heavy volume of water down the fall of the cañon seemed to make the cliffs tremble. I had to get ashore against the cliff-side, somehow, if I ever intended to get out, and I intended to get out, no two ways about it. I might drown if I plunged in, but I might not. And I was certain to starve if I stuck to the rock. So I took off my coat, which the river had spared me, and let myself down from the lower end of the rock. I had that rolling and thrashing experience all over again, still not quite so bad, for there was daylight to cheer me every time my head got clear of the water. "There's no use pulling the story out. I made it. I landed, and I found that I could work my way along the side of the cliff and over the fallen masses by the waterside. It wasn't so bad after that. "My hope was that I might find a place where a breach in the cliff would offer me escape that way, but there was none. The strip of sky that I could see looked no wider than my hand. I saw the light at the mouth of the cañon when it was beginning to fall dusk in there. I suppose it was along the middle of the afternoon." "We were over there about then," said she, "thinking you might have gone in to try for that reward. If we only had known!" "You could have come over to the other end with a blanket," said he, touching her hand in a little communicative expression of thankfulness for her interest. "There is a little gravelly strand bordering the river at that end. After its wild plunge it comes out quite docile, and not half so noisy as it goes in. I reached that strip of easy going just as it was growing too dark for safe groping over the rocks, and when I got there my legs bent like hot candles. "I crawled the rest of the way; when I got out I must have been a sight to see. I know that I almost frightened out of his remaining wits a sheep-herder who was watering his flock. He didn't believe that I came through the cañon; he didn't believe anything I said, not even when I told him that I was cold and hungry." "The unfeeling beast!" "Oh, no; he was just about an average man. He had a camp close by, and let me warm and dry myself by his fire; gave me some coffee and food when he saw that I wasn't going to hurt him, but I don't believe he shut an eye that entire night. He was so anxious to get rid of me in the morning that he gave me an old hat and coat, and that was the rig I wore when I returned to Comanche." "The hotel-keeper gave you the message that we left?" she asked. "He was surly and ungracious, said he didn't know where you were. I was of the opinion that you had turned my baggage over to him, and that he found it convenient to forget all about it." "We brought it here--it's in my room now; and we told him when we left where we were going, Mr. Bentley and I."