Halstead Rowan had one foot thrust forward on the log, his other on the firm ground behind. "H. T." stood on the rock beside him, making no motion to cross. There was evidently a banter between them, and though they were probably not aware of the fact, their words were readily distinguishable beneath.
"None of my business, I suppose; but it is folly!" they heard spoken by the voice of "H. T."
"I suppose that every thing is folly which goes out of the hum-drum track of every-day life!" they heard Rowan reply. "But I like folly, and so here goes! Will you follow me?"
"Without wanting to go over?—no!" was the answer.
The words had scarcely left his lips when Rowan sprang forward on the log, stepping lightly, but balancing himself with some care, towards the other side. Insensibly all who saw him held their breath. If he should be correct enough in his balance, who could say that the log might not be a rotten shell, ready to fall under the heavy weight of the stout athlete? In fact, he had scarcely reached the middle when the tottering fabric seemed to give way and come toppling down into the chasm below. Not in reality; for had it done so, the career of the Illinoisan, with whom we have by no means finished, would have been ended for all time. The startling appearance was created by the dislodging of a large shell of the rotten bark by his foot, more than half costing him his balance, and bringing out from the group beneath a chorus of cries that might well have disturbed what remained of equilibrium. One cry sounded sharper and higher than all the rest: there were those present who knew from whose lips it came: enough for us to say that it did not come from those of Margaret Hayley, whose eyes were still turned upward with a feeling in them very different from fear. Before the cry had fairly died away, the peril, whatever it might have been, was past, and Halstead Rowan stood on the other side of the chasm, bowing to the group who had been observing him, as he learned from the cries, at the bottom. They saw "H. T." turn and walk away at the same moment; and then, drawing a long breath, Margaret Hayley said, much more to herself than to her immediate companions:
"What a thing beyond all admiration is that courage!"
"Which our other friend does not seem to be troubled with in any great degree!" said Captain Hector Coles, finishing out the sentence with a tone perceptibly sneering. Margaret looked round at him with a look which might have been one of inquiry, then turned away her face again and said:
"No, I suppose not! Not more than half the world can be demigods: the others must be common people, or worse!"
Whether Captain Hector Coles liked the tone of the reply, or not, is uncertain. At all events he scowled a little and said nothing more, while Mrs. Burton Hayley stole a look into the face of her daughter which had no hypocrisy in it and was full of wonder and trouble.
Five minutes afterwards the company were all again at the mouth of the Flume, and there Halstead Rowan, a second time the hero of the day, joined them. "H. T." did not make his appearance: he had struck across, the Illinoisan said, without waiting for him, over the almost impassable fallen timber and through the spruce thickets, by the cross-path to the Pool. A few minutes more sufficed to re-seat the group in their wagons and to deposit them once more at the door of the Flume House, whence they took their way on foot, straggling in every picturesque variety of locomotion towards that equally-curious pendant of the Flume which is often missed by those who visit the better-known wonder.