Blake lifted the line and sent up it a wave that carried to the upper end and flipped the loop from the spike-head. He jerked the freed end down to him and knotted it securely to the picket-pin, while Ashton was making the third vertical measurement. He then lowered everything except the level in loops of the line, and wrapped a strip of canvas around the line where it bent over the sharp edge of the cliff. Ashton laconically reported the measurement. Blake noted it in his book, and promptly swung himself out over the edge of the cliff. Again his assistant looked at the fastening of the rope; again he looked upwards at the three tiny down-peering faces; and again he followed his leader. The sun was glaring directly down into the gorge. Later they would descend into the shadows where no eye could perceive from above the loosening of the rope. Blake cut off the line at the foot of the cliff and left it dangling. They would require it for their ascent. Another Titan step took fifty feet more of the rope. There followed a series of steep pitches, which they descended like the first, unlooping the rope from spike-head after spike-head. The only real difficulty of this part of the descent was the tedious task of carrying the vertical measurement down the slopes at places where even Blake could not find footing to climb out horizontally on either wall of the gorge to obtain a clear drop. Always, as they descended, the engineer scanned the rocks both above and below, calculating where the gorge bottom could be reascended without a line. Whenever he considered the incline too smooth or too steep for safe footing, he drove in spikes near enough together to be successively lassoed from below with a length of line. Had not the nature and condition of the rock provided frequent faults and crevices that permitted the driving of spikes, the descent must soon have become impracticable. But the engineer invariably found some chink in which to hammer a spike with his powerful blows. As, time after time, he overcame difficulties so great that his companion could perceive no possible solution, Ashton began to feel himself struggling against a feeling of reluctant admiration. All his hate could not blind him to the extraordinary mental and physical efficiency displayed by the engineer. Never once did the steely muscles permit a slip or false step, never once did the cool brain miscalculate the next most advantageous movement. They were now so deep that Blake had to shout his infrequent directions, to be heard above the booming reverberations of the canyon. Half way down they came to a forty-foot cliff. Blake made his preparations, and swung over the edge. Here was an opportunity. Ashton instantly bent over the knot of the rope.