Page:Silversheene (1924).djvu/139

 hanging the river, and a mad idea flashed through his brain. As they neared the cliff the idea grew clearer and brighter. Perhaps he communicated it to his team mates. Or maybe they only caught it from him intuitively. Such ideas do travel through a herd of animals or a flock of birds with lightning-like rapidity.

A flock of sea gulls wheeling and flying over the cliffs will maneuver with such precision that the light upon their outer wings as they wheel will show the same color and flash at the same second on each bird, just as though it had been one great bird with twenty pairs of wings, instead of twenty birds each with a volition of its own.

So perhaps it was thus that Silversheene's desperate idea was communicated to his team mates. Eagerly they strained up the steep until they were immediately opposite the point where the cliff hung highest and steepest over the Yukon. Then with one impulse and with a chorus of glad yelps they suddenly wheeled and dashed precipi-