He was about to strip off his coat, when a shout reached him. It came so suddenly and unexpectedly that it made his heart jump.
“Yes?” he yelled, springing to the edge of the chasm and looking about. He did not see any one. “Where are you?” he called, his heart jumping with excitement and new hope.
“Here!” The voice had a singular sound, shrill and feminine.
He ran along the edge of the chasm, looking down, for it seemed to come from below; and again he shouted an inquiry.
Then he saw the figure of a young woman, who was on one of the ledges below him, and was trying to ascend the steep side of the chasm. She had a rope, which she had flung up, with its noose hooked over a projection.
“I’m coming!” she cried confidently, and began to climb the rope.
Her slight body swung and swayed over the dizzy chasm as she began to climb. Slowly ascending, sometimes she slipped back, with a motion that made him think she was falling and brought his heart into his mouth.
He did not clearly see her face now, and he had not secured a very good view of it, but he felt sure he knew who the young woman was.
With much difficulty, the girl climbed the rope and drew herself upon the ledge to which the noose held. She looked up, and then he saw her face clearly—the face of Lena Forest. Yet it seemed impossible she could be there, as he had believed she was safe at the fort.
While the plucky girl was thus climbing the face of the dizzy precipice, the fire was raging with wild fury, as if it knew that help was coming to the scout and it was determined to overwhelm him before that help could arrive. The increasing heat almost blistered his face and hands now, and it drove him to the very edge of the precipice, over which he soon was hanging, to escape it.