as the lightning played over it, to read if he
could, unsuspected, whether she still had courage for the undertaking.
She regarded him so collectedly, whether answering a question or
asking one, that he marvelled at her strength and purpose. Hardly a
moment passed after they had started until the eastern sky lightened
before the retreating storm, and with the first glimmer of daylight,
the two were at the beginning of the narrow foothold which lay for
half a mile between them and safety.

Here the El Capitan trail follows the face of the almost vertical wall
which, rising two thousand feet in the air, fronts the gateway of
Morgan's Gap.

They started forward, de Spain ahead. There was nothing now to hurry
them unduly, and everything to invite caution. The footholds were
slippery, rivulets still crossed the uncertain path, and fragments of
rock that had washed down on the trail, made almost every step a new
hazard. The face of El Capitan presents, midway, a sharp convex. Just
where it is thrown forward in this keen angle, the trail runs out
almost to a knife-edge, and the mountain is so nearly vertical that it
appears to overhang the floor of the valley.

They made half the stretch of this angle with hardly a misstep, but
the advance for a part of the way was a climb, and de Spain, turning
once to speak to Nan, asked her for her rifle, that he might carry it
with his own. What their story might have been had she given it to
him, none can tell. But Nan, holding back, refused to let him relieve
her. The dreaded angle which had haunted de Spain all night was safely
turned on hands and knees and, as they rounded it toward the east,
clouds scudding over the open desert broke and shot the light of dawn
against the beetling arete.

De Spain turned in some relief to point to the coming day. As he did
so a gust of wind, sweeping against the sheer wall, caught him off his
guard. He regained his balance, but a stone, slipping underfoot,
tipped him sidewise, and he threw himself on his knees to avoid the
dizzy edge. As he fell forward he threw up his hand to save his hat,
and in doing so released his rifle, which lay under his hand on the
rock. Before he could recover it the rifle slipped from reach. In the
next instant he heard it bouncing from rock to rock, five hundred feet
below.

Greatly annoyed and humiliated, he regained his feet and spoke with a
laugh to reassure Nan. Just as she answered not to worry, a little
singin