Bob’s next task was to regain solid land.  For some minutes he sat astride the boulder, estimating the force and directions of the current.  Then he leaped.  As he had calculated, the stream threw him promptly against the bank below.  There his legs were immediately sucked beneath the overhanging rock that had convinced Saleratus Bill of his captive’s fate.  It seemed likely now to justify that conviction.  Bob clung desperately, until his muscles cracked, but was unable so far to draw his legs from underneath the rock as to gain a chance to struggle out of water.  Indeed, he might very well have hung in that equilibrium of forces until tired out, had not a slender, water-washed alder root offered itself to his grasp.  This frail shrub, but lightly rooted, nevertheless afforded him just the extra support he required.  Though he expected every instant that the additional ounces of weight he from moment to moment applied to it would tear it away, it held.  Inch by inch he drew himself from the clutch of the rushing water, until at length he succeeded in getting the broad of his chest against the bank.  A few vigorous kicks then extricated him.

For a moment or so he lay stretched out panting, and considering what next was to be done.  There was a chance, of course—­and, in view of Saleratus Bill’s shrewdness, a very strong chance—­that the gun-man would add to his precautions a wait and a watch at the entrance to the cove.  If Bob were to wade out around the ledge, he might run fairly into his former jailer’s gun.  On the other hand, Saleratus Bill must be fairly well convinced of the young man’s destruction, and he must be desirous of changing his wet clothes.  Bob’s own predicament, in this chill of night, made him attach much weight to this latter consideration.  Besides, any delay in the cove meant more tracks to be noticed when the gun-man should come after the horses.  Bob, his teeth chattering, resolved to take the chance of instant action.

Accordingly he waded back along the sunken ledge, glided as quickly as he could over the rock apron, and wormed his way through the grasses to the dry wash leading up the side of the mountains.  Here fortune had favoured him, and by a very simple, natural sequence.  The moon had by an hour sailed farther to the west; the wash now lay in shadow.

Bob climbed as rapidly as his wind would let him, and in that manner avoided a chill.  He reached the road at a broad sheet of rock whereon his footsteps left no trace.  After a moment’s consideration, he decided to continue directly up the mountainside through the thick brush.  This travel must be uncertain and laborious; but if he proceeded along the road, Saleratus Bill must see the traces he would indubitably leave.  In the obscurity of the shady side of the mountain he found his task even more difficult than he had thought possible.  Again and again he found himself puzzled by impenetrable thickets, impassable precipices, rough outcrops barring his way.  By dint of patience and hard work, however, he gained the top of the mountain.  At sunrise he looked back into Bright’s Cove.  It lay there peacefully deserted, to all appearance; but Bob, looking very closely, thought to make out smoke.  The long thread of the road was quite vacant.