“I assume the professor must have got pitched off somewhere hereabouts,” remarked the Yankee. “You can gamble on it he’s in the same boat as Garth. See, here’s the identical spot where he struck earth,” pointing to a deep impression in the clayey soil. “Perhaps the fall killed him!” Seymour suggested. “It may be better for him if it did,” retorted Silas; “Heaven alone knows what tortures these darned, red-haired freaks will be trying on him if he’s a prisoner in their hands; but I guess they’ll hardly have taken the trouble to cart his body off, if he’d been killed by the drop, so let’s get a hustle on.” Nothing loth, the baronet stepped out briskly again. Now the trail of the wolf-men led over stony ground, and many precious moments were lost in tracing the faint tracks, sometimes all but invisible. Then it would pass through the midst of some quaking morass, where a false step meant death, and that in a form so hideous that even the boldest could not face it calmly. Yet they kept tenaciously to their task, determined to do their utmost to rescue their friends, or, failing that, to avenge them. For the most part they proceeded in silence, with hearing strained to catch the first sound of approaching foes; then suddenly to their ears came the noise of rushing waters. A few paces farther and a great, black chasm yawned before them, splitting the plain in twain. At its depth they could only guess, but in width it appeared to be about thirty feet, and from its black depths arose the roar of a mighty torrent. “See!” cried the baronet, “the ‘wolf-men,’ as you call them, must have crossed here.” He pointed to where a frail, hide rope bridge--formed by two long strands united by numerous cross-ties after the manner of a rope ladder--swayed giddily above the abyss. “It will take a bit of nerve to cross that flimsy thing,” he went on, “but I suppose there’s no other way; so here goes.” He placed one foot carefully upon the first rung of the bridge, and was about to commit his whole weight to it, when suddenly he was dragged forcibly backward by his companion. The next moment a knife flashed through the twilight on the farther side of the chasm, and the hide bridge, severed from its fastening, swished downward into the depths, and hung dangling against the rocky wall. Quick as thought the Yankee’s revolver spoke, and a dark figure, leaping high into the air, hurtled over the brink of the abyss. “I calculate he was a trifle too previous,” drawled Silas. “The flash of his knife gave the show away, or you’d ha’ been down there by now.” Seymour gazed into the darkness below, then turned and gripped his friend’s hand. Not a word of thanks did he speak, but that grip expressed more eloquently than words his gratitude to Haverly for the prompt action which alone had saved him from a fearful death.