The valley was not wide. They had reached a point where its sides narrowed to form the mouth of the canyon. The pound of the horse's feet was lost in the titanic bombilation of the elements—the incessant crash and rumble of thunder and the ever increasing roar of rushing waters. At every jump the girl expected her frantic horse to go down, yet she was conscious of no feeling of fear. She glanced over her shoulder, but the terrific downpour acted as a curtain through which her eyes could not penetrate with the aid even of the most vivid flashes of lightning. Yet she knew that the Texan rode at her flank and that the others followed—Endicott and Bat, with his pack-horse close-snubbed to his saddle-horn. Suddenly the girl felt her horse labouring. His speed slackened perceptibly. As abruptly as it started the rain stopped; and she saw that water was swirling about his knees. Saw also by the aid of a lightning flash that throughout its width the valley was a black sea of tossing water. Before her the bank was very close and she jerked her horse toward a point where the perpendicular sides of a cutbank gave place to a narrow plane that slanted steeply upward. It seemed to the girl that the steep ascent would be impossible for the horses but it was the only chance. She glanced backward. The Texan was close behind, and following him were the others, their horses wallowing to their bellies. She had reached the hill and so steep was its pitch that her horse seemed perpendicular to the earth's surface. She leaned over the horn and twisted her fingers into his mane as the animal, his feet clear of the water, clawed and scrambled like a cat to gain the top. Another moment and he had pulled himself over the edge and the girl leaped to the ground. The Texan had not followed to the top but had halted his horse at the edge of the water that was mounting steadily higher. Bat swung in with his pack horse and with his quirt Tex forced them up the embankment. Endicott's horse was all but swimming. The water came above the man's knees as the animal fought for footing. The Texan leaned far out and, grasping the bridle, drew him in to the bank and quirted him to the top. Then, as the three watched, he headed his own horse upward. Scarcely had the animal come clear of the water when the eager watchers saw that something was wrong.
"De cinch—she bus'!" cried the half-breed excitedly. "Dat dam' Purdy cut de cinch an' A'm trade Tex mine for ride de outlaw, an' we trade back. Voila!" As the man talked, he jerked the coiled rope from his saddle and rushed to the edge. Alice, too, crowded to the bank, her hands tight clenched as she saw the man, the saddle gone from under him, clinging desperately to the bridle reins, his body awash in the black waters. Saw also that his weight on the horse's head was causing the animal to quit the straight climb and to plunge and turn erratically. It was evident that both horse and rider must be hurled into the flood. The fury of the storm had passed. The rumble of thunder was distant now. The flashes of lightning came at greater intervals, and with a pale glow instead of the dazzling brilliance of the nearer flashes. Through a great rift in the cloud-bank the moon showed, calm and serene above the mad rush of black waters.
For a single instant Alice gazed into the up-turned face of the Texan, and in that instant she saw his lips curve into the familiar cynical smile. Then he calmly let go the reins and slipped silently beneath the black water, as the released horse scrambled to the top. Beside her, Endicott uttered an oath and, tearing at the buttons of his slicker, dashed the garment to the ground. His coat followed, and stooping he tore the shoes from his feet and poised on the very edge of the flood. With a cry she sprang to his side and gripped his arm, but without a word he shook her roughly away, and as a dark form appeared momentarily upon the surface of the flood he plunged in.
Alice and Bat watched as the moonlight showed the man swimming with strong, sure strokes toward the spot where a moment before the dark form had appeared upon the surface. Then he dived, and the swift-rushing water purled and gurgled as it closed over the spot where he had been. Rope in hand, Bat, closely followed by the girl, ran along the edge of the bank, both straining their eyes for the first sign of movement upon the surface of the flood. Would he never come up? The slope up which the horses had scrambled steepened into a perpendicular cut-bank at no great distance below, and if the current bore the two men past that point the girl knew instinctively that rescue would be impossible and they would be swept into the vortex of the canyon.
There was a cry from Bat, and Alice, struggling to keep up, caught a blur of motion upon the surface some distance below. A few steps brought them opposite to the point, where, scarcely thirty feet from the bank, two forms were struggling violently. Suddenly an arm raised high, and a doubled fist crashed squarely against the jaw of a white, upturned face. The half-breed poised an instant and threw his rope. The wide loop fell true and a moment later Endicott succeeded in passing it under the arms of the unconscious Texan. Then the rope drew taut and the halfbreed braced to the pull as the men were forced shoreward by the current.
With a cry of relief, Alice rushed to the aid of the half-breed, and grasping the rope, threw her weight into the pull. But her relief was short-lived, for when the forms in the water touched shore it was to brush against the side of the cut-bank with tea feet of perpendicular wall above them. And worse than, that, unhardened to the wear of water, the bank was caving off in great chunks as the current gnawed at its base. A section weighing tons let go with a roar only a few yards below, and Bat and the girl worked as neither had ever worked before to tow their burden upstream to the sloping bank. But the force of the current and the conformation of the bank, which slanted outward at an angle that diminished the force of the pull by half, rendered their efforts in vain.
"You stan' back!" ordered Bat sharply, as a section of earth gave way almost beneath their feet, but the girl paid no attention, and the two redoubled their efforts.
In the water, Endicott took in the situation at a glance. He realized that the strain of the pull was more than the two could overcome. Realized also that each moment added to the Jeopardy of the half-breed and the girl. There was one chance—and only one. Relieved of his weight, the unresisting form of the Texan could be dragged to safety—and he would take that chance.
"Non! Non!" The words were fairly hurled from the half-breed's lips, as he seemed to divine what was passing in Endicott's mind. But Endicott gave no heed. Deliberately he let go the rope and the next moment was whirled from sight, straight toward the seething vortex of the canyon, where the moonlight revealed dimly in the distance only a wild rush of lashing waters and the thrashing limbs of uprooted trees.