"But——!"
A sickening apprehension had seized upon Keeko as she contemplated the overhang of the tree. It was almost at right angles to the face of the cliff. It projected out nearly thirty feet, and below—Her woman's heart could not repress a shudder at the thought of the three hundred feet drop to the rocky shoals in the waters below.
"You don't mean that?" she demanded a little desperately.
Marcel nodded.
"It's plumb easy."
There was no showiness, no bravado. Marcel had no thought to dazzle the girl. His purpose was a simple, boyish act.
He moved off into the forest while Keeko looked after him. From her heart she could have begged him to abandon, or modify his plan. But she refrained, and, somehow, sick at the thought of his purpose, she still realized a thrill at the object of it all. She looked at the roots of the overhanging tree and shuddered. They were partly torn out of the ground.
Marcel returned with his trophy. It was a burden of no mean weight. And Keeko's recognition of the fact only added to her fears.
"How—?" she began. But her question remained unasked.
"It's a cinch," Marcel cried. "Don't worry a thing. See those?" He pointed at two thongs of plaited rawhide, each secured to one of the horns. "Guess I'll tie them into a sling about the old trunk, and move the poor feller's head up as I get out, leaving it hanging below. Then, when I get to the end, I'll just haul it up, and fix it in its place. I've got it all figured."