“Not in the least,” Lisle replied shortly. “I’m not sure I even sympathize. But since you’ve turned up you’ll have to stick to us; I don’t want to waste time in leading another search party. As soon as there’s a little more light, we’ll try to get across the cañon.”
“Thanks for the permission,” smiled Batley, lighting a cigar.
CHAPTER XXX
THE END OF THE PURSUIT
By degrees the light got clearer, the scattered black cedars grew into definite form, and a strip of foaming water showed in the depths of the chasm. Lisle walked some distance along the edge, searching for an easier place to cross, but the rocks were smooth and almost perpendicular except where they overhung the torrent. He went back to where the others were sitting and found that they had been joined by Crestwick, who briefly explained that having set out on their trail he had been stopped by the cañon and had followed it up until it led him to them.
“It looks worse farther along; we’ll have to try it here,” Lisle announced. “Can you get down, Nasmyth?”
Nasmyth glanced into the rift. It was, he judged, nearly sixty feet in depth, but part of the bank on which he stood had slipped down into the stream, leaving an uneven surface by means of which an agile man might descend. A tall slab of rock, evidently part of the fallen mass, rose in a pinnacle from the water, and on top of it rested the branches of the tree that Gladwyne had used as a bridge and had afterward dislodged. The rock behind it on the opposite bank was absolutely smooth, but the thicker end of the log, which had fallen against the face, reached to within about nine feet of the summit.
“Yes,” he said, answering Lisle’s question; “but I’m very doubtful whether I can get up the other side. The last bit looks particularly awkward; there’s an outward bulge just beneath the top.”