It was with an exclamation of relief that he found his revolver in place at his hip.
"This expedition of mine, considered strictly _as_ an expedition, is a failure," he grimly muttered, thankful for his own escape, and still convinced that it was not as bad as it might have been with his friend.
"It won't do to try it again, and it remains for me to get out of the canyon altogether." He had landed upon the extreme upper end of the most immense rock of all that had been used to help in the ascent.

He remembered it well.

The upper portion was depressed and sloping, being three or four feet above the current.

Thus it happened that the point to which he was clinging allowed him to be deluged with spray, and he strove to climb to the higher part.
He was thus engaged, conscious of a number of severe bruises, when an object whisked past his shoulder, taking a direction up the gorge.

He felt it graze his face, and detected something that can only be described as a deepening of the dense gloom as it shot over his head.