With a heroism that was beyond praise, Lena continued to mount, from ledge to ledge, throwing up the rope and catching it on projections, and then climbing up to the projections. At length she gained the ledge below the scout.
When she looked up now he saw that she was on the point of exhaustion. Her face was pale, and her eyes were big and bright. Her breath came in gasps, as she stood up for the last cast of the rope.
“Catch it!” she said, then the rope shot from her hand, and the noose was caught by the scout.
With a turn, he looped the noose over a point of the rock by him, and the next instant he was sliding down the rope. It was like a rescue from the very jaws of death.
When Buffalo Bill gained the ledge, he found Lena Forest lying there, almost in a faint, from sheer exhaustion and intense excitement.
“Thank Heaven, I was in time!” she said, in a tremulous voice, when she saw he had reached the ledge.
“Yes!” he echoed. “I can never thank you enough for that. It saved me from an awful fate, though we’re not entirely secure here.”
“No, but you’re safe from the fire.”
“Yes, I think so.”
He looked down at the ledges still below him. The noose of the rope was on the rock point above, and he had no rope now with which to make a further descent. How he was ever to get down into the cañon without a rope he did not know.