amount of slack that remained, the jerk when the line pulled taut all but loosened the Texan's hold. Each moment seemed an eternity, as the weight of both hung upon the Texan's one-handed grip. "Hold for all you're worth!" he gasped, and he felt her arms tighten about him, relinquished the hold on her waist and with a mighty effort gripped the rope with the hand thus freed. Even with two hands it was no mean task to maintain his hold, for the current slight as it was, swung them down so the pull was directly against it. The Texan felt the girl's grasp on his neck weaken. He shouted a word of encouragement, but it fell on deaf ears, her hands slipped over his shoulders, and at the same instant the man felt the strain of her weight on his arm as the scarf seemed to cut into the flesh. The Texan felt himself growing numb. He seemed to be slipping--slipping--from some great height--slipping slowly down a long, soft incline. In vain he struggled to check the slow easy descent. He was slipping faster, now--fairly shooting toward the bottom. Somehow he didn't seem to care. There were rocks at the bottom--this he knew--but the knowledge did not worry him. Time enough to worry about that when he struck--but this smooth, easy slide was pleasant. Crash! There was a blinding flash of light. Fountains of stars played before his eyes like fireworks on the Fourth of July. An agonizing pain shot through his body--and then--oblivion. A buckskin horse, with two water-soaked boots lashing his flanks and trailing a lariat rope from the horn of his saddle, dashed madly up a coulee. The pack string broke and the terrifying thing that lashed him on, fell to the ground with a thud. The run became a trot, and the trot a walk. When the coulee widened into a grassy plain, he warily circled the rope that dragged from the saddle, and deciding it was harmless, fell eagerly to eating the soggy buffalo grass that carpeted the ground. While back at the mouth of the coulee lay two unconscious forms, their bodies partly awash in the lapping waves of the rising river. CHAPTER X JANET MCWHORTER