Peering downward, the awed and grateful boys saw the black mass suddenly strike the foamy waters and send the spray flying in all directions. It disappeared for a moment and then popped up like a rubber-ball, and went dancing down the current toward the break in the walls which they had visited a brief while before. Still silent and watching, they observed it dancing up and down with the violence of the stream until its motion was arrested by striking an obstruction, which held it motionless. There it stayed for the remaining minutes spent in peering into the abyss. Jack and Fred looked up and across the canyon at the same instant. They were directly opposite, and hardly twelve feet apart. The elder took off his hat and called: "Are you ready?" "Yes," said Fred, removing his head-gear. "All together!" And then they swung their hats and hurrahed with the vim which, all things considered, was justified by events. They were happy and grateful, and neither forgot to thank, with all the fervency of his nature, the One who had delivered them in safety from the very jaws of death. No matter what other dangers might come to them, there could be none narrower or more striking than that through which they had just passed. "Do you intend to stay on that side of the canyon?" asked Fred. "I don't know that there is any choice between our places, but if you feel lonely I'll come over to your help." "I thought you might want to pick up the gun you threw away." Jack looked at each of his hands in turn and laughed. "Do you know I had forgotten all about that? I don't remember having thrown it aside." "I saw you do it, and it was a lucky thing you did." The two walked beside the canyon until they came to a straight place, where Jack easily made the leap and joined his friend. Then they set out to recover the Winchester, which, as matters stood, was almost beyond value to them. "I can't recall the spot where I dropped it," remarked Jack, allowing his companion to take the lead. "I do; you and I were doing such tall running then, and for some minutes afterward, that we covered more ground than would be supposed. That's the spot, just ahead." He indicated an open space, thirty or forty feet in width, lying between a ridge of boulders, over which it was astonishing how the fugitive had managed to make such good progress. "We shall find it right there----" Fred checked his words, for at that moment they came upon the spot he had in mind and both swept their gaze over it. Their dismay may be imagined when they saw nothing of the Winchester. "You must be mistaken as to the place," said Jack. "I can't be; it was just after you had leaped down from that low boulder that you gave your right arm a swing and away the gun went." "Did you notice where it landed?" "I can put my hand on the very spot." "Do so." Fred led the way a few paces and said: "It was there, and nowhere else." Jack bent over and carefully studied the earth.