Catching hold of outcropping ledges, mesquit, and even cactus bushes, she went up like a mountain goat But the water swept upon her, waist high, and dragged at her.  She clung to a quartz knob her fingers had found, but her feet were swept from her by the suction of the torrent.  Her hold relaxed, and she slid back into the river.

Like a flash of light a rope descended over her outstretched arms, tightened at her waist, and held her taut.  She felt the pain of a tremendous tug that seemed to tear her in two.  Dimly her brain reported that somebody was shouting.  A long time afterward, as it seemed to her then, a strong arm went round her.  Inch by inch she was dragged from the water that fought and wrestled for her.  Phyllis knew that her rescuer was working up the cliff wall with her.  Then her perceptions blurred.

“I’ll never make it this way,” he told himself aloud, half way up.

In fact, he had come to an impasse.  Even without the burden of her weight, the sheer smooth wall rose insurmountable above him.  He did the one thing left for him to do.  Leaving her unconscious body in a sort of trough formed by the juncture of two strata, he lowered himself into the rushing stream, searched with his foot for a grip, and swung to the left into the niche formed by a mesquit bush growing from the rock.  From here, after stiff climbing, he reached the top.

He found, as he had expected, his cow pony with feet braced to keep the rope taut.  Old Baldy was practising the lesson learned from scores of roped steers.  No man in the Malpais country was stronger than this one.  In another minute he had drawn up the girl and laid her on the grass.

Soon she opened her eyes and looked into his troubled face.

“Mr. Weaver,” she breathed in faint surprise.  “Where am I?”

But her glances were already answering the question.  They took in the rope under her arms, followed it to the horn of the saddle, around which the other end was tied, and came back to the leathery weather-beaten face that looked down into hers.

“You have saved my life.”

“Not me.  Old Baldy did it.  I never could have got you out alone.  When I roped you, he backed off same as if you had been a steer, and pulled for all there was in him.  Between us we got you up.”

“Good old Baldy!” She let it go at that for the moment, while she thought it out.  “If you hadn’t been right here——­” She finished her sentence with a shudder.

She could not guess how that thought stabbed him, for he replied cheerfully:  “I heard you call, and Baldy brought me on the jump.”

Phyllis covered her face with her hands.  She was badly shaken and could not quite control herself.  “It was awful—­awful.”  And short staccato sobs shook her.

Buck put his arm around her shoulders, and soothed her gently.  “Don’t you care, Phyllis.  It’s all past now.  Forget it, little girl.”