Ida sat down gasping, when her companion stopped, and gazed with an instinctive shrinking into the gulf below.

She could now see the climbing pines, black beneath the moon, and the river shining far away in the midst of them, but they seemed to go straight down.

She was very weary, and scarcely felt able to get up again, but in a minute or two Weston held out his hand.
"I fancy that this ridge dies out somewhere to the left.

We'll follow the crest of it until we can get around the end," he said.
They went on very cautiously, though there were times when Ida held her breath and was glad of the firm grasp that her companion laid on her arm.

She would not look down into the valley, and when she glanced aside at all it was up at the gleaming snow on the opposite side of it.