Twenty feet below the starting place the little party of three stopped to wave to the group above them. They had previously come down through the white wall of stone which now rose like a mountain of snow above them.
Bettina, from her place up above, could not see Peggy’s face, but for two or three moments after they started down again she could see her figure.
Peggy moved with swift and certain grace. She seemed as totally unafraid and as sure of herself as her two companions. Indeed, she appeared rather more so, for there are persons with whom the art of climbing is a natural gift, and others who are extraordinarily awkward.
Ralph Marshall was in front although it was an unfortunate place for him. The rocky path was deeper than he had expected, and the stones under his feet slipped more uncertainly. The experience of descending so steep a precipice was a new and not altogether a pleasant experience. Ralph had not dreamed that one could be expected to walk down the face of a rock, but that was apparently what the three of them had set about doing.
Yet neither Peggy nor Howard Brent made any complaint.
Now and then Ralph could hear Peggy laugh as she slipped and regained her balance.
But he had no disposition to laugh. Once or twice he thought of asking Howard Brent to exchange places with him and lead the way. They had not planned to follow this second trail for any great distance, but only to come down a short way until they discovered a possible resting place where the view of the lower walls of rock and the river would be finer.
Yet Ralph hesitated to speak to Howard Brent. They were not friendly. Indeed, Howard had avoided his society as much as possible ever since the unfortunate conversation he had held with Terry Benton in reference to Peggy. Moreover, Ralph knew that Howard was also scornful of him in other ways. He was so strong and efficient himself in outdoor matters that he considered the Eastern man almost effeminate. It was true Ralph could dance and play tennis, but he was not athletic, because he never had been fond of really strenuous sports. They had always appeared too much like work.
Ralph now felt that he would rather come to grief than confess his nervousness to the other man. Peggy, he would not have minded. She was never disagreeable when people did not enjoy exactly the same things she did.
Indeed, Ralph was becoming convinced that Peggy Webster was one of the finest girls he had ever known. He had set about trying to be particularly friendly with her because of his wager. But, if he had not succeeded in making Peggy like him by his attentions to her, he had certainly succeeded in making himself fond of Peggy. He had no sentimental ideas about her, as he had about many girls with whom he indulged in mild flirtations. For one thing Peggy seemed too young; for another, she was too boyish and too frank in her acceptance of his comradeship.