“Is it time to go now?” asked Loseis nervously.
“No! No! Wait until they are right on top of us.”
Somewhere back of them the two parties met on top of the ridge. There was a whispered consultation, then a silence, very hard for the listeners to bear. Conacher held Loseis’ hand tightly squeezed within his own. Up there under the wide spreading night sky they became queerly aware of their insignificance. A long silence; then from half a dozen sounds their sharpened senses informed them that their enemies were creeping towards them through the pines.
Loseis caught her breath sharply, and moved towards the edge.
“Steady, sweetheart,” whispered Conacher.
Suddenly there was an astonished cry of: “There!” and a rush of feet.
Loseis and Conacher cried out wildly, as they had rehearsed together: “Good-by! . . . Good-by, all!” And leaped.
CHAPTER XXII
THE SEARCH
Loseis could never have described the sensations of that mad roll down the cut-bank. As a matter of fact all sensation was whirled clean out of her; and the first thing she knew was the mighty smack with which her body hit the water. Water it seemed could be almost as hard as wood. She went under.
As she rose again, gasping and wildly reaching, her fingers came in contact with Conacher’s coat. In the first second she clutched him in a deathlike grip; in the second she remembered he had told her they would both drown, if she did so; and she released him. She discovered that the air cushion was sufficient to hold her up.