The three climbed to the falls, crossed the bridge, and reached the top of the cliff.
"You know the lay of the land down there, Mr. Elliot. We'll lower you," decided Macdonald, who took command as a matter of course.
Gordon presently stood beside Sheba on the little plateau. She had quite recovered from the touch of hysteria that had attacked her courage. The wind and the rain had whipped the color into her soft cheeks, had disarranged a little the crinkly, blue-black hair, wet tendrils of which nestled against her temples. The health and buoyancy of the girl were in the live eyes that met his eagerly.
"I met them coming," he answered as he dropped the loop of the rope over her head and arranged it under her shoulders.
He showed her how to relieve part of the strain of the rope on her flesh by using her hands to lift.
"All ready?" Macdonald called from above.
"All ready," Elliot answered. To Sheba he said, "Hold tight."
The girl was swung from the ledge and rose jerkily in the air. She laughed gayly down at her friend below.
Gordon followed her a couple of minutes later. She was waiting to give him a hand over the edge of the cliff.
"Miss O'Neill, this is Mr. Macdonald," he said, as soon as he had freed himself from the rope. "You are fellow passengers on the Hannah."
Macdonald was looking at her straight and hard. "Your father's name--was it Farrell O'Neill?" he asked bluntly.
The girl's eyes lit. "I'm glad, Mr. Macdonald. That's one reason I wanted to come to Alaska--to hear about my father's life here. Will you tell me?"
"Sometime. We must be going now to catch the boat--after I've had a look at the cliff this young man crawled across."
He turned away, abruptly it struck Elliot, and climbed down the natural stairway up which the young man had come. Presently he rejoined those above. Macdonald looked at Elliot with a new respect.
"You're in luck, my friend, that we're not carrying you from the foot of the cliff," he said dryly. "I wouldn't cross that rock wall for a hundred thousand dollars in cold cash."
"Nor I again," admitted Gordon with a laugh. "But we had either to homestead that plateau or vacate it. I preferred the latter."
Miss O'Neill's deep eyes looked at him. She was about to speak, then changed her mind.