It was a desperate combat in which Chick found himself. Even without the threatening spear, there was peril enough to have satisfied the most reckless searcher for adventure. Chick noted, even as he grasped the fellow’s two arms in his strong hands and forced him backward, that there were certain points of resemblance between the dark, scowling faces before him and those he had glimpsed in the forest when the poisonous snake had made an end of the fanatical “holy man” who had tortured Adil. “It’s one of the same gang,” thought Chick. “Those fellows weren’t down the river for nothing.” He and his foe were both on the very brink of the precipice. The ledge was only a few feet wide. To make it worse, the ledge sloped slightly toward the great chasm, and Chick instinctively drew back as he felt himself slipping toward the edge. “One of us has to go over,” he muttered. “I’ll try to prevent the pair of us taking the leap. But--” There was a sudden movement by the native, as he glared evilly into Chick’s face, and Chick felt himself going past his enemy and slipping! For one wild moment he glanced about him, to see whether there was hope of rescue anywhere. He saw that Nick Carter, Patsy, Adil, Jefferson Arnold, and the four natives of the party were gazing at him anxiously, and he knew that Nick had waved to him, while saying something that Chick could not make out. “It’s no use!” he groaned. “This is where I pass in! Well, I’ll take this brute with me!” He struggled frantically to keep on the sloping ledge, while holding tightly to the other man’s arm. “You go!” grunted the native, in laconic English. “You go!” “Wonder whether that is all he knows of United States,” thought Chick. It may be wondered that Chick would pay attention to such a triviality as this Hindu’s knowledge of English at such a time, when inevitable death seemed to stare him in the face. The answer to that is that, in moments of awful danger, the mind will often run on things that are of no importance. Many a soldier in a wild bayonet or cavalry charge goes to his death humming ragtime without knowing what he is doing. “You go!” repeated the tugging, straining man from the mountains. As he said this again, Chick’s foot slipped from the sloping rocky ledge, and he was hurled into space! CHAPTER X. THE LOST ONE FOUND. For the merest splinter of a second, Chick was in a confusion of mentality that took no note of anything. Then, before he could realize that he was plunging to a horrible death, there was an agonizing tug at his right wrist, and he thought his hand had been taken off by some kind of saw-edged knife. “Ugh!” he ejaculated involuntarily. Something swept past his eyes, and just as he knew that it was the body of his foe plunging downward into the valley, he also understood that he was hanging by one arm over the awful depths!