Thus reassured, Irving obeyed. He went on fishing; he tramped to Artist’s Point with Miss Maynard, Nixie, and Mr. Derwent, and at night went to his rest without having cross-examined Betsy further.
He knew every shade of expression in her good, immobile face, and satisfaction was too clearly writ upon it for him to doubt that all was well. Let her have her little mystery, if she derived enjoyment from it. Of course all Irving cared for was to know that Rosalie was properly looked after,—the details were really immaterial.
Toward the following morning he found himself on the shore of the Firehole River, again waiting for the Riverside Geyser to play. As the water began to spout, he suddenly noticed that Rosalie Vincent was in a canoe in the middle of the river, just in the path of the irresistible liquid catapult. He flung off his coat preparatory to jumping into the water, and at the same time shouted her name repeatedly.
A mixture of sheepishness and relief greeted his sudden view of the ceiling of his bedroom. His own voice rang in his ears. He glanced at the window. Streaks of light were showing in the sky. An idea occurred to him.
“I shall never have such another chance,” he thought. In fifteen minutes more he was dressed and stealing like a burglar down the corridor and out the door of the hotel.
The sky was brightening fast, and he started on a jog-trot in the direction of the canyon.
The stillness, the loveliness of that morning,—the only sounds those of Nature undisturbed and uninterrupted! What fine exhilaration was in the air! Had no reward followed that run over the mountain road, Irving Bruce would have remembered it all his days as unique in rare enjoyment; but when at last he passed out from the shadows and stood upon a vantage-point commanding the superb gorge, what words can describe the grandeur of the pageant, as the rising sun brightened the flaming walls of the canyon, and whitened the tempestuous water which paused on an awful brink before thundering into the deeps below,—a compact mass of shimmering silver foam!
A strange ecstasy forced moisture into the watcher’s eyes; but suddenly as his glance swept down the cliff his heart seemed to stop beating. On a jutting rock below him a woman was standing. She wore a white gown and was bareheaded. While he looked she seemed to become terror-stricken, and retreating, her back to the falls, clung to the hoary rock like a frightened dove.
As in his dream Irving shouted, “Rosalie! Rosalie!” but the mad roar of water fortunately drowned his voice as he plunged down the path that led to the jutting rock.
If the girl should faint or fall, there was nothing to prevent her slipping over the edge and rolling into the awful chasm, and it seemed to the man an eternity before he scrambled to a foothold beside her and seized the white gown. She lifted dilated eyes to his face, then gave a smile of heavenly relief and sank into the arms that clasped her.