The engineer was the only cheerful member of the party. Even Thomas Herbert, that best tempered of babies, was peevish and fretful. He was instinctively reflexing the suppressed nervousness and anxiety of his mother. Gowan and Ashton were as gloomy in look and speech as the shadowy depths of the canyon. Isobel bravely sought to respond to Blake's confidence in the favorable outcome of the survey; but her smile, like Genevieve's, was forced and her eyes were troubled. They reached the point of attack as the rays of the morning sun were beginning to strike down into the side gorge. This was as Blake had planned. He at once began to direct the preparations for the descent, himself doing the lion's share of the work. A long detour to a point higher up the ravine offered an easy descent of its bottom to the place where it pitched steeply into the canyon. Blake preferred to take a short cut down the almost vertical side of the gulch. The three pieces of rope, each a hundred feet long, were knotted together and used to lower a grass-padded package containing all the equipment of the explorers except the level. The bundle was lodged on a broad shelf of rock, over two hundred and fifty feet down. "Our first measurement," remarked Blake, as he subtracted from three hundred feet the length of the line left above the edge of the cliff. He jotted down the remainder in his notebook, and nodded to Ashton, who, with Gowan and Isobel, was holding the end of the rope. "You see why I had Mr. Gowan bring gloves and chaps and your leggins. We will make the line fast around that rock, and follow our outfit." Ashton stared, slack jawed. "Really, you cannot mean--?" "Yes. Why not?" asked Blake. "There's nothing to a slide like this except the look of it." "Oh, Tom!" breathlessly cried Genevieve. "Are you sure--quite sure!" "Sure I'm sure, little woman," he replied. "There's not the slightest danger. This is a new manila rope, and the package, with all those spikes in it, weighs as much as I do. That gives us a sure test." "I might have known!" she sighed her relief. "Still it does look a bit stiff for a start-off," he admitted. "If Lafe prefers, he can go around and come down the ravine bed. I shall slide the line and be getting the outfit in shape for shooting the chutes." "How about the rope?" asked Isobel. "You are to drop it to me as soon as I get down and stand from under," directed Blake. He examined with minute care the loop and knot with which Gowan and Isobel had made the rope fast around the point of rock. Having satisfied himself that the knot was perfectly secure, he turned to his wife and opened his arms. "Now, Sweetheart! Wish us good luck and a quick journey!" Gowan and Ashton drew back and looked away as Genevieve flung herself on her husband's broad chest, unable to restrain her tears. "Now, now, little woman," he soothed, patting her shoulder. "There's nothing to be afraid of, and you know it."