It was the finest leap yet made, but, unfortunately, the support upon which he so confidently counted had no existence.

Instead of landing on solid stone, he dropped into the raging torrent and went spinning down stream like a cork in a whirlpool.
He kept his presence of mind, and did not exhaust his strength by trying to stem the current.

His great peril was in being hurled against some of the rocks and killed or having a limb broken.

Throwing out his arms just in time he averted this calamity, and feeling himself scraping swiftly past one of the masses of stone that had served him as a support, he desperately gripped it and drew himself out of the water.
He was uninjured, but became immediately conscious of a great misfortune.

In the flurry his Winchester had become displaced and was irrecoverably gone.