Expedition to the Bad Lands 73 



again, but all the time I was sliding down with 

 ever-increasing rapidity toward the edge of the 

 abyss, safety on either side and certain and awful 

 death below. 



I remember that I gave up all hope of escape, 

 and that after the first shock I felt no fear of death ; 

 but the few moments of my slide seemed hours, 

 measured by the rapidity with which my mind 

 worked. Everything, it seemed to me, that I had 

 ever done or thought spread itself out before my 

 mind's eye as vividly as the wonderful panorama 

 of the cliffs and canyons upon which I had been 

 gazing a few moments before. All the scenes of my 

 life, from childhood up, were re-enacted here with 

 the same emotions of pleasure or pain. I saw dis- 

 tinctly the people I had known, many of them long 

 forgotten. My mother seemed to stand out more 

 prominently than anyone else, and I wondered what 

 she would think when she heard that I had been 

 dashed to pieces. I even planned how, when I did 

 not return to camp, Cope would set out to find me, 

 following my footsteps into the loose dirt until he 

 reached the slide, and I wondered how he would ever 

 get down into the canyon, and how much of my body 

 would be left for burial. 



To this day I do not know how I escaped. I sud- 

 denly found myself lying on the ledge, on the side 

 I had left a moment before. Probably some part of 



