artly around the crowd, keeping aloof. She had a new
plaid shawl, gayly colored, pinned closely about her neck, and her
long, black, Indian-like curls showed beneath a beaded scarlet hood.
There was an intently anxious look in her eyes; she appeared worn and
tired.

"The Peevy" was much too tall a man to be shut up in the crowd.
Presently he espied her, and his eye fell. After a time he casually,
as it were, made his way back to her. None of us heard what was said.
The most instinctively kept their eyes to themselves. The gang on the
other side was staring across the chasm. Villate ripped out an oath,
and I saw Lotte push the girl aside so roughly that she caught at a
shrub to save herself. He walked straight to the brink of the cliff.

"Je suis ici," said he. I never saw him look so manly. We knew his eye
was quick and his hand sure. I had little doubt that he would cut the
front logs and come up safe. We did not know what the danger was till
afterward. He stood upright in the "basket," with one hand on the
hawser, to steady himself, and his axe in the other.

At a signal the gang on the west side straightened the line. We paid
it out slowly. They drew him out from the brink of the ledge, till the
basket was directly over the centre rock. Then gradually we slackened
it, and let him down foot by foot, down under the rainbow, where the
hot, mad mist flew up in fierce gusts, bearing the strong odor of
crushed spruce fibre. He seemed to bear the deafening roar without
confusion, and glanced about him quite coolly, as it looked.

Our attention was given closely to his signals and to our task, yet I
saw Young Moll coming forward, step by step, as the "basket" went
deeper and deeper into the gorge, her eyes riveted on it. She was very
pale, and her hands were tightly clenched. The drivers cast ominous
glances at her.

"I don't half like the looks of the jade!" I heard muttered, and I
think the sight of her filled every one with a sense of foreboding.

As soon as the basket was down to the logs we saw him step out upon
them, and thence to the rock. From moment to moment the mist hid him,
and transient jets of water, from betwixt the logs, squirted high over
his head. Guardedly he planted one boot, shod with the sharp corks,
upon one of the large front logs--the one he judged it best to cut
away first; the other foot rested on the rock. The "basket" he had
placed at his back. We were holding it steady from both banks, rea