If he lost her--even for a few seconds--the life would be beaten from her body in that rock-strewn maelstrom below.
And then, suddenly, the babiche cord about his wrist grew loose.

The reaction almost threw him back.

With the loosening of it a cry came from Marette.

It all happened in an instant, in almost less time than his brain could seize upon the significance of it--the slipping of her hands from the rock, the shooting of her white body away from him in the still whiter spume of the rapids, The rock had cut the babiche, and she was gone! With a cry that was like the cry of a madman he plunged after her.

The water engulfed him.