"That settles him," cried one of the horse thieves, grimly. "He was a fool to follow us."
"Wot! Arfter sech a plunge?" returned the first speaker, sarcastically. "Wall, hardly, ter my reckonin'."
They shifted their positions on the brink of the opening, but try their best, could see nothing more of the young man or the mare.
It was now growing darker rapidly, and fifteen minutes later, satisfied that Allen had really taken a fall to his death, they continued on their way.
Down, down, down sank the mare and her hapless rider, until the very bottom of the river was struck.
The swiftly flowing tide caught both in its grasp, tumbled them over and over and sent them spinning onward. Allen's grasp on the saddle relaxed, and as it did so the young man lost consciousness.
How long he remained in this state Allen never knew. When he came to he was lying among brush, partly in the water and partly out.
He attempted to sit up and in doing so, slipped back beyond his depth. But the instinct of self-preservation still remained with him, and he made a frantic clutch at the brush and succeeded in pulling himself high and dry upon a grassy bank.
Here he lay for several minutes exhausted. He could not think, for his head felt as if it was swimming around in a balloon.
At last he began to come to himself and after a bit sat up to gaze about him. But all was dark and he could see little or nothing.
He remembered the great plunge he had taken and wondered what had become of Lilly. He called her with all the strength of his enfeebled lungs, but received no response.
"She must have been killed," he thought. "Poor Lilly! But had it not been for the protection her body gave me it is more than likely that my life would have been ended, too!" and he shuddered to think of his narrow escape.
It was nearly half an hour before Allen felt strong enough to rise up. His head felt light, and for a while he staggered like an intoxicated man.
He knew he was down in the canyon, and some distance below where the bridge had been. He wondered how he could ascend to the top of the rocks which presented themselves on the two sides.
"I can't climb up in this darkness," he said half aloud. "I might slip and break my neck. I had better walk along and hunt for some natural upward slope."