d insisted upon
their proceeding, which they did cautiously and with weary feet all
night long. Just before the dawn our friends reached a position of
which Amaxosa had told Grenville, and which the latter saw with delight
was simply impregnable, and was, according to the Zulu, in the heart of
the very best centre of the game resorts of East Utah.

To reach this desired spot the party had to ascend a steep narrow path
for upwards of a hundred feet, and this brought them on to a grassy
plateau some fifty yards square, the back of it being formed by the
rocks, which towered away thousands of feet above their heads, and
seemed to soar into the very heavens. The base, however, was pierced
with several caves, in one of which was a tiny spring of water. The
place was in fact like the huge grass-laid initial step of some giant
stairway leading up the precipitous face of the mountain.

Amaxosa led away the quagga and hid it in a safe locality, where he
thought it improbable the beast would be found, where it had food and
water, and was walled in with a zareba of thorn-bushes--anyway, it must
take its chance with the rest of them.

When the Zulu reappeared he brought a small deer on his shoulders, and
indifferent now whether they were seen or not, the party cooked an
excellent breakfast, which was duly appreciated, and then all, with the
exception of Grenville, lay down to sleep. Upon his iron constitution
the effect of the night's work was simply nil, and as he had slept the
previous afternoon he was fortunately still comparatively fresh.

Grenville now examined the new position of his party with increased
care, and found that he could wholly approve of it. The place was
admirably adapted for a sustained defence, so long as they had food; and
as the game runs were, according to Amaxosa, less than three hundred
yards away direct to a small stream, and as there was no scrub that
would afford the enemy any cover against their rifles operating from
such a height, he could only repeat to himself that the plateau was
impregnable. Here neither fire, water, nor gunpowder could touch them,
and the Mormon Three would have to devise some further hellish and
wonderful scheme before they got the little band into their power again.

On inquiry it had turned out that someone at the cave near the stairway
had incautiously knocked the tobacco ash out of his pipe into the little
stream, and that the fragrant weed, absolutely still smok