It was a week or two after he undertook the investigation of Slocum's affairs, and once more the light was failing, when Devine stood at the head of the gully above the cañon. His wife and Barbara were with him, and they were about to descend, when a cluster of moving figures appeared among the pines on the opposite hillside. So far as Devine could make out, they were rolling down two or three small trunks of firs.
The river was veiled in white mist now, but the sound of its turmoil came up hoarsely out of the growing obscurity, and there was sufficient light above to show the rope which spanned the awful chasm. It swept downwards in a flattened curve, slender and ethereal, at that distance, as a film of gossamer, and lost itself in the gloom of the rocks, across the cañon. Barbara, however, fancied she realized what it had cost the flume-builder to place it there, and, as he glanced at it, a somewhat curious look crept into Devine's eyes. He knew that slender thread of steel had only been flung across the hollow at the risk of life and limb, and under a heavy nervous strain.
"If we are going down, hadn't we better start?" said Mrs. Devine. "If it gets quite dark before we come up, I shall certainly have to stay there until to-morrow. In fact, I'm quite willing to let you and Barbara go without me now."
Devine smiled. "I'm not sure we'll go at all. It seems to me Brooke means to give the thing a private trial before he asks me to come over and see it work, and that's why he waited until it was almost dark. Can you make him out, Barbara?"
Barbara had, as a matter of fact, already done so, but she realized that her sister's eyes were upon her, and for no very apparent reason preferred not to admit it.
"It is getting a little shadowy among the pines, and Katty used to tell me she had sharper eyes than mine," she said.
Mrs. Devine laughed. "Still," she said, reflectively, "I scarcely think I have seen Mr. Brooke quite so often as you have."
Devine glanced at them both a trifle sharply, but there was nothing in their faces that gave him a clue to their thoughts. "Well," he said, "I'm a good deal older than either of you, but I can make him out myself now. As usual, he seems to be doing most of the work."
Nobody said anything further, and the moving figures stopped where the rope ran into the shadows of the rocks, while it was a few minutes later when a long, dusky object swung out on it. It slid somewhat slowly down the incline, and then stopped where the slight curve led upward, and remained dangling high above the hidden river. A shout came faintly through the roar of water in the gulf below, and the dark mass oscillated violently, but otherwise remained immovable.
"What are they doing? Shouldn't it have run all the way across?" asked Mrs. Devine.