We'll laugh about it to-morrow."
Would they? she wondered, answering his smile faintly. Her courage was
sapped. She wanted to cry out that he must not try the traverse, but she
set her will not to make it harder for him.
He turned to the climb.
"You've forgotten your coat," she reminded.
"I'm traveling light this trip. You'd better slip it on before you get
chilled."
Sheba knew he had left it on purpose for her.
Her fascinated eyes followed him while he moved out from the
plateau across the face of the precipice. His hand had found a knob
of projecting feldspar and he was feeling with his right foot for a
hold in some moss that grew in a crevice. He had none of the tools for
climbing--no rope, no hatchet, none of the support of numbers. All the
allies he could summon were his bare hands and feet, his resilient
muscles, and his stout heart. To make it worse, the ice film from the
rain coated every jutting inch of quartz with danger.
But he worked steadily forward, moving with the infinite caution of
one who knows that there will be no chance to remedy later any mistake.
A slight error in judgment, the failure in response of any one of fifty
muscles, would send him plunging down.
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