g the man. With unhurried but almost superhuman
strength he was working the other sweep from the rear, aiming for the
opposite bank.

The struggle seemed hopeless. Torrance read it at a glance,
unaccustomed as he was to water. The tug of the rapids was drawing
them swiftly downward in a course that was too slightly diagonal to its
current to promise more than the faintest hope. The man seemed
suddenly to grasp the extent of their peril, for his arms moved more
quickly, the bow of the raft swinging about and pointing upstream; but
still the current gripped them relentlessly.

The woman lifted her head and looked down along the whirling eddies to
the froth of broken water. For a moment she stood, rigid, then turned
to the horses, and from among them sprang a huge dog. Into its mouth
she pressed the end of a rope, and it leaped far into the water.

Torrance's left hand fumbled back within the door for his
field-glasses. Through them he saw the dog emerge lower down, still
holding the rope, and dash in long bounds up the bank. As the strain
of the rope came, it sank back on its haunches. The rope snapped up
out of the water for a moment, and the dog plunged forward with the
jerk, fighting every inch. Then it got a firmer hold and braced. Inch
by inch the raft yielded to the extra power. It continued to drift
toward the rapids, but also it was working to the bank now. At
intervals the eddying current pulled the dog along, but always it
braced against the tug, its feet digging into the loose gravel and sand.

The man was working hard, but so regularly that the dog felt but a
fraction of the weight of the loaded raft. But what it felt was
sufficient to turn the scales.

As the raft slithered in sideways to the bank, a small broncho dashed
ashore, followed by four other horses. At a fast lope it led away
toward the trees that grew down the distant slope to the river bottom.

Torrance awakened then. With livid face he swung the rifle up and
fired. Tressa struck at his arm too late.

It was a long range, and to such an indifferent marksman a matter of
luck. But to Tressa to try was sacrilege after the struggle they had
witnessed. The bullet fell far short, glancing from the water in a
swift slit in the reflecting surface.

At the report the broncho broke into a gallop. The man and the woman
swung swiftly toward the grade, and the next instant the woman had
disappeared--somewhere; neither Torrance nor