ll in order to gain the backbone of the rock. Billy
went slowly, displaying extreme caution; but twice she saw him slip, the
weather-eaten stone crumbling away in his hand and rattling beneath him
into the cove. When Hall reached the top, a hundred feet above the sea,
she saw him stand upright and sway easily on the knife-edge which
she knew fell away as abruptly on the other side. Billy, once on top,
contented himself with crouching on hands and knees. The leader went
on, upright, walking as easily as on a level floor. Billy abandoned the
hands and knees position, but crouched closely and often helped himself
with his hands.

The knife-edge backbone was deeply serrated, and into one of the notches
both men disappeared. Saxon could not keep down her anxiety, and climbed
out on the north side of the cove, which was less rugged and far less
difficult to travel. Even so, the unaccustomed height, the crumbling
surface, and the fierce buffets of the wind tried her nerve. Soon she
was opposite the men. They had leaped a narrow chasm and were scaling
another tooth. Already Billy was going more nimbly, but his leader often
paused and waited for him. The way grew severer, and several times the
clefts they essayed extended down to the ocean level and spouted spray
from the growling breakers that burst through. At other times, standing
erect, they would fall forward across deep and narrow clefts until their
palms met the opposing side; then, clinging with their fingers, their
bodies would be drawn across and up.

Near the end, Hall and Billy went out of sight over the south side
of the backbone, and when Saxon saw them again they were rounding the
extreme point of rock and coming back on the cove side. Here the way
seemed barred. A wide fissure, with hopelessly vertical sides, yawned
skywards from a foam-white vortex where the mad waters shot their level
a dozen feet upward and dropped it as abruptly to the black depths of
battered rock and writhing weed.

Clinging precariously, the men descended their side till the spray was
flying about them. Here they paused. Saxon could see Hall pointing down
across the fissure and imagined he was showing some curious thing to
Billy. She was not prepared for what followed. The surf-level sucked and
sank away, and across and down Hall jumped to a narrow foothold where
the wash had roared yards deep the moment before. Without pause, as
the returning sea rushed up, he was around the sharp corne