"Slack the setting up tackles, Gillow. Hurry for your life," he shouted. "He'll cast the cable loose and be off by the Indian trail into the ranges, if he once gets across."
Gillow ran his best, where running of any kind was barely possible even by daylight. He knew that his master was slow to forgive those whose carelessness thwarted any plan, and that, while taking the easier way over instead of crawling round a ledge, he had probably alarmed the fugitive. He reached the foot of the ladder. Climbing up in a desperate hurry, he cast loose the end of the tackle by means of which the cable was set up taut, but neglected in his haste to take a turn with the hemp rope about a post, which would have eased him of most of the strain.
"Got him safe!" cried Tom from Mattawa, scrambling to the top of the boulder, as the curve of the wire rope high above their heads increased. In spite of the fugitive's efforts, the trolley from which he was suspended ran back to the slackest part of the loop that sagged down nearer the river. Thurston, who watched him, nodded with a sense of savage satisfaction. He did not for a moment believe that, of his own initiative, any workman would have made a long journey or would have run considerable personal risk to do him an injury. That was why he was so anxious to secure the offender.
The curve grew rapidly deeper, until the rope stretched into two diagonals between its fastenings on either shore. Then the trolley descended with a run towards the river, and Geoffrey ran forward, shouting, "The weight's too much for Gillow. Bring along the coil of line from the tool locker, Tom. Hurry, I don't want to drown the rascal."
What had happened was simple. The cook, endeavoring to take a turn of the line too late, had failed, and the hemp ran through his half-frozen fingers, chafing the skin from them. Seeing Thurston floundering in his direction over the boulders, he valiantly strove to check it, regardless of the pain until it was whipped clear of his slackening grasp and the trolley rushed downwards towards the torrent. Thurston was abreast of it before it splashed in, and had just time to see its occupant, still clutching the rope, drawn under by the sinking wire, before he plunged recklessly into the foam.
The water was horribly cold, and the first shock left him gasping and almost paralyzed. The stream was running fast, and rebounding in white foam from great stones and uneven ledges below. But the distance was short, and Thurston was a strong swimmer, so almost before the man had risen, he was within a few yards of the struggling figure. Hardly had Geoffrey clutched the man before Mattawa Tom, who had, meantime, run down stream, whirling a coil of line, loosed it, and the folds, well directed, shot through the air towards Geoffrey, uncoiling as they came. By good fortune Thurston was able to seize the end and to pass it around them both, when—for Gillow had by this time joined his companion—the two men blundered backwards up the contracted beach, and Thurston and the fugitive were drawn shorewards together, until their feet struck bottom.
Breathless and dripping, they staggered out, and, because Geoffrey still clutched the stranger's jacket, the man said:
"Mightily obliged to you! But you can let up now there's no more swimming. I couldn't run very far, if it was worth while trying to."
"You needn't trouble to thank me," was the answer. "It wasn't because I thought the world would miss you that I went into the water; but I can't expect much sense from a half-drowned man. Do you think the rest of the boys have heard us, Tom?"
The foreman glanced towards the tents clustered in the mouth of a ravine above, and seeing no sign of life there, shook his head, whereupon Geoffrey directed: