Ida, who was conscious that her heart was beating painfully fast, wondered what kept him from falling.

There was not a crevice or a cranny that she could see; but she could not see anything very well, except the tense figure stretched against the stone and the set, white face.

Dark pines and foaming water had faded into insignificance.
He moved again, and crept forward with agonizing slowness, until at length he stopped and gazed at the wall of rock still in front of him.
That part of it was very smooth and overhung a little between where he was and the steeply sloping strip of shingle on which the girl stood.
The stream swirled past furiously, and it was evident to Ida that if he lost his hold it must sweep him down the rapid and over the fall.
She was never sure how long he clung there, but his white face and the poise of his strung-up figure impressed themselves indelibly on her memory.

Strain was expressed in every line of his body and in his clutching hands.

Then the strength and decision that was in her asserted itself, and she overcame the numbing horror that had held her powerless.