“I’ve an idea that the top of that tree reached across to this side when it first came down,” Lisle said. “Have you got a match?”
Nasmyth had brought a few carefully-treasured wax matches with him, and he lighted one. It was very still, except for the roar of the hidden torrent, and the pale flame burned steadily in the motionless cold air. It showed a couple of hollows, where something had rested, close to the edge of the rift, and one or two fresh scratches on a strip of rock. Lisle stooped down beside them.
“Hold the thing lower!” he exclaimed sharply. “It’s as I suspected—this is where Gladwyne got across; though he has better nerves than I thought he had. The broken end of a branch or two rested right here, and he was smart enough to heave the butt off the other bank, after he’d crawled over. Looks to me as if it had broken off yonder stump. Guess there’ll be light enough to look for a way across in half an hour.”
Sitting down he filled his pipe, and shortly afterward he raised one hand as if listening. For a while, Nasmyth could hear nothing except the roar of water; there was not a sound that he could catch in the thin straggling bush behind them where few trails of mist were stretched athwart the trees. Then he started as a faint crackling and snapping began in the distance.
“Can it be a bear?” he asked.
“No; it’s a man!”
Nasmyth was somewhat astonished. They had not seen a human being except those of their party for a long while, and it seemed strange that they should come across one now in the early dawn in those remote wilds.
“He’s wearing boots,” he said diffidently, as the crackling drew nearer.
“Yes,” Lisle responded; “he’s making a good deal more noise than a bushman would.”
The sound steadily approached them. Nasmyth found something mysterious and rather eerie in it, and he was on the whole relieved when a dark figure materialized among the trees near by. He could barely see it, but Lisle called out sharply: