the rock crest, every unwonted sound causing us to start and
glance about in nervous terror. It seems to me now Eloise remained the
most self-controlled among us, and I have felt sincerely ashamed at
yielding to my weaker nature in thus betraying nervousness before that
company. Yet had she been in safety I would have proven more of a man,
as by this time no haunting superstition remained to burden my heart.
I realized we were leaguered by flesh and blood, not by demons of the
air, and had never counted my life specially valuable in Indian
campaign. But to be compelled to look into her fair face, to feel
constantly the trustful gaze of her brown eyes, knowing well what would
be her certain fate should she fall into savage hands, operated in
breaking down all the manliness within me, leaving me like a helpless
child, ready to start at the slightest sound. De Noyan barely touched
the food placed in front of him, and, long before Cairnes had completed
his meal, the Chevalier was restlessly pacing the rocks beside the
stream, casting impatient glances in our direction.

"_Mon Dieu_!" he ejaculated at last, "it is not the nature of a
Frenchman to remain longer cooped in such a hole. I beg you, Benteen,
bid that gluttonous English animal cease stuffing himself like an
anaconda, and let us get away; each moment I am compelled to bide here
is torture."

Experiencing the same tension, I persuaded the Puritan to suspend his
onslaught, and, undisturbed by sight or sound, we began a slow advance,
clambering across the bowlders strewing the narrow way, discovering as
we moved forward that those towering cliffs on either side were
becoming lower, although no possibility of scaling them became
apparent. We travelled thus upwards of a quarter of a mile, our
progress being necessarily slow, when a dull roar stole gradually upon
our hearing. A moment later, rounding a sharp edge of projecting rock,
and picking our way cautiously along a narrow slab of stone extending
out above the swirling water, we came forth in full view of a vast
cliff, with unbroken front extending from wall to wall across the
gorge, while over it plunged the stream in a magnificent leap of fully
one hundred and fifty feet. It was a scene of rare, romantic beauty,
the boiling stream surging and dancing madly away from its foot, and
the multicolored mists rising up like a gauzy veil between us and the
column of greenish-blue water. Yet it pleased us little