"Be very careful of your footing," he called back anxiously. A small grassy platform lay above the upper end of the trough, but the last dozen feet of the approach was a very difficult bit. Gordon took advantage of every least projection. He fought his way up with his back against one wall and his knees pressed to the other. Three feet short of the platform the rock walls became absolutely smooth. The climber could reach within a foot of the top. "Are you stopped?" asked Sheba. "Looks that way." A small pine projected from the edge of the shelf out over the precipice. It might be strong enough to bear his weight. It might not. Gordon unbuckled his belt and threw one end over the trunk of the dwarf tree. Gingerly he tested it with his weight, then went up hand over hand and worked himself over the edge of the little plateau. "All right?" the girl called up. "All right. But you can't make it. I'm coming down again." "I'm going to try." "I wouldn't, Miss O'Neill. It's really dangerous." "I'd like to try it. I'll stop if it's too hard," she promised. The strength of her slender wrists surprised him. She struggled up the vertical crevasse inch by inch. His heart was full of fear, for a misstep now would be fatal. He lay down with his face over the ledge and lowered to her the buckled loop of his belt. Twice she stopped exhausted, her back and her hands pressed against the walls of the trough angle for support. "Better give it up," he advised. "I'll not then." She smiled stubbornly as she shook her head. Presently her fingers touched the belt. [Illustration: "SO YOU THINK I'M A 'FRAID-CAT, MR. ELLIOT?"] Gordon edged forward an inch or two farther. "Put your hand through the loop and catch hold of the leather above," he told her. She did so, and at the same instant her foot slipped. The girl swung out into space suspended by one wrist. The muscles of Elliot hardened into steel as they responded to the strain. His body began to slide very slowly down the incline. In a moment the acute danger was past. Sheba had found a hold with her feet and relieved somewhat the dead pull upon Elliot. She had not voiced a cry, but the face that looked up into his was very white. "Take your time," he said in a quiet, matter-of-fact way. With his help she came close enough for him to reach her hand. After that it was only a moment before she knelt on the plateau beside him. "Touch and go, wasn't it?" Sheba tried to smile, but the colorless lips told the young man she was still faint from the shock. He knew he was going to reproach himself bitterly for having led her into such a risk, but he could not just now afford to waste his energies on regrets. Nor could he let her mind dwell on past dangers so long as there were future ones to be faced. "You might have sprained your wrist," he said lightly as he rose to examine the cliff still to be negotiated. Her dark eyes looked at him with quick surprise. "So I might," she answered dryly.