rd, which, he
had no doubt, was already rigidly posted in the subterranean roadway,
and so regain the Pass and the outside world.

The plan was dangerous to a degree, but was in fact the only one which
offered the slightest chance of success; their own act had brought them
into this mysterious country, and nothing short of supreme audacity and
the most determined bravery could carry them out again. Moreover,
Grenville was quite resolved not to go away empty-handed. Granted that
the place really was, as Winfield had said, simply alive with gold, he
meant both Leigh and himself to have a lion's share--not that either was
greedy of fortune, but both, as younger sons of old families, had keenly
felt the snubs of wealth, and it would truly be a grand thing if they
could fill their pockets out of nature's inexhaustible stores.

Their present position, except by trenching advisedly upon their
supplies, was untenable for any length of time; this had come out in the
course of Grenville's questions to Amaxosa.

"Why," he had asked, "have we seen no game, not a living creature of any
kind, with the exception of a few birds, and yet you and the Inkoos
Winfield talk of hunting?"

"Because of the great black gulf and the dark River of Death," was the
answer; and Grenville had been given to understand that this wonderful
country was absolutely cut in two, from side to side, by a yawning
abyss, forty to fifty feet across, through which, some three hundred
feet below, flowed a sluggish and inky-looking stream of incalculable
depth, thoroughly meriting the Stygian name bestowed upon it.

This awful chasm, which intersected the country for over eighty miles,
was cleverly spanned in three places, equidistant about twenty miles, by
stout but narrow wooden bridges; and these were jealously-guarded night
and day, the nearest one to the present hiding-place of the party being
also the bridge most adjacent to the Mormon stronghold, which went by
the name of East Utah. It was one of these bridge guards that Amaxosa
had slain in order to cross the gulf and, as he--poor fellow!--thought,
regain his freedom.

On further consideration, and after an early breakfast, the party
decided to change their quarters that very night, for, much to their
surprise, it proved that Amaxosa had stowed away, in a cave close by,
sufficient dried flesh to keep a small army going for months; this led
to inquiry, and it came out that an enterprising Mormon had