OVER THE BRINK Isobel came back to him, noiselessly gliding around through the darkness. She set down the bundle she was carrying, and hung blankets over the entrance of the little cave. She then lighted the lantern. He held out his bound hands. She unbound them enough for him to use his fingers, and taking the baby and the pistol, crouched down, with her ear close to the screening blankets, while he exchanged his tattered clothes for those she had brought to him. There were also his change of boots and a pair of Blake's gauntlet gloves, into which he was able to force his slender fingers without removing the remaining bandages. Isobel had already bound up into a kind of knapsack the food and clothing and first-aid package that he was to take down to her injured brother. He slung it upon his back, and whispered that he was ready. She nestled the baby in the warm blankets on which he had lain, wrapped a blanket about the lantern, and led him cautiously down to the brink of the chasm. Dark as was the night about them, it was bright compared with the intense blackness of that profound abyss. The girl caught his arm and shrank back from the edge. "You will not fall? you are certain you will not fall?" she whispered. "I cannot fall," he answered with calm conviction. "He needs me. I am going down to him. Besides, it will be easier with the lantern than if I could see below." "Do not uncover the light until you are down over the edge.--Wait!" She stooped to knot the rope that he had brought up from the depths, to the lariats with which he had been dragged up the last ledges. She looped the end about his waist. "There," she said. "I shall at least be able to help you down the first fifty yards." "God bless you and keep you! Good-by!" he murmured in a choking voice, and he hastily crept down to slip over the first ledge of that night-shrouded Cyclopean ladder. "Lafe!" she whispered. "Surely you do not mean to go without first telling me--I cannot let you go until--If you should fall! Wait, dearest! Kiss me--tell me that you--Oh, if you should fall!" "I will not fall; I cannot. Good-by!" The dim white blotch of his face disappeared below the verge. The line jerked through the girl's hands. She clutched it with frantic strength and flung herself back with her feet braced against a point of rock. After a moment of tense straining, the rope slackened, and his voice came up to her over the ledge: "Pay out, please. It's all right. I've found a crevice." She eased off on the line a few inches at a time, but always keeping it taut and always holding herself braced for a sudden jerk. At last the end came into her hand. She had to lie out on the rim-rock and call down to him. He called back in a tone of quiet assurance. The line slackened. He had cast it loose. The lantern glowed out in the blackness and showed him standing on a narrow shelf.