"I'll jump first," added Victor, walking back several paces to gain the necessary start. He could have made the leap without this preparation, but was using only ordinary prudence. George stood to one side and close to the edge, so as to observe every phase of the performance. Despite the apparent safety of the attempt, a strange misgiving came over George, and he turned to his brother to protest, when he saw he had started on his brief run. He carried his rifle in his right hand, took a number of short steps, measuring the distance with his eye, so that the take-off should be exact, and covered the space in a second or two. George was watching every movement of the supple limbs, when he uttered an exclamation of horror. At the very moment Victor was gathering his muscles for the leap, and when close to the edge, the dripping stone caused his foot to slip. He fell sideways, let go of his rifle, which shot over the edge, and desperately struggled to check himself. Had there been five seconds at command he would have been saved. George, who made the attempt, could have dashed forward and grasped a foot or leg. Victor could have stopped, but the rock on which he had fallen seemed to be covered with plumbago. While frantically clutching and vainly trying to grasp some obstruction that would overcome his momentum, he slid over the edge and dropped into the boiling cauldron below. The accident was begun and finished, as may be said, in the twinkling of an eye. Wild with affright, George ran to the edge of the torrent and peered over. He caught a glimpse of his brother a dozen yards away, spinning down the torrent. He saw his head for a moment, and then his arms thrown upward, as he disappeared, blindly but vainly struggling to save himself. In an instant he was whirled round a bend in the canyon, his body flung aloft by the resistless force of the torrent, but hurled hither and thither, as helpless as a log of wood. Frantic and hardly conscious of what he was doing, George dashed along the edge of the canyon, which sped faster than he could run. One moment he was on the point of leaping into the raging waters in the blind effort to save Victor, but the certainty that that would only add another victim held him in restraint, and he continued running, stumbling and praying in agony for Heaven to intercede while it was yet time. Suddenly he saw a man standing on the other side of the canyon some rods below, and staring wonderingly at him. George raised his voice so that it pierced the uproar like the notes of a trumpet: "Save him! Save him! He fell into the water!" CHAPTER XXV. JACK HALLOWAY AGAIN.