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It was a week or two after he undertook the investigation of Slocum's affairs, and once more the light was failing, when Devine stood at the head of the gully above the canyon. His wife and Barbara were with him, and they were about to descend, when a cluster of moving figures appeared among the pines on the opposite hillside. So far as Devine could make out, they were rolling down two or three small trunks of firs.
The river was veiled in white mist now, but the sound of its turmoil came up hoarsely out of the growing obscurity, and there was sufficient light above to show the rope which spanned the awful chasm. It swept downwards in a flattened curve, slender and ethereal, at that distance, as a film of gossamer, and lost itself in the gloom of the rocks, across the canyon. Barbara, however, fancied she realized what it had cost the flume-builder to place it there, and, as he glanced at it, a somewhat curious look crept into Devine's eyes. He knew that slender thread of steel had only been flung across the hollow at the risk of life and limb, and under a heavy nervous strain.