a straight game!"

"I cheated once."

"That was when you thought the advantage would be mine. But how far do
you think we will have to go?"

"Perhaps I can tell you when the sun gets up. We may have to search for
three or four days; we may strike the creek to-night."

"Ah," she said, "I hope it will not be three or four days. Now we are
very near, the suspense is keen." Then she smiled. "However, we will go
back and get breakfast, because you must set your brain to work."

It was next morning when they saw the first of Strange's landmarks; and
Thirlwell, taking its bearing with the compass, changed their line of
march. In the evening they climbed a low hill, and when they reached its
top, which rose like an island from a waste of short pine-scrub,
Drummond stopped and, touching Agatha, indicated the ridge across the
valley.

"Look!" he said. "The _hollow rock_!"

A small gray object, dwarfed by the distance, stood out against a smear
of dark green on the crest of the high ground. After studying it for a
few moments Thirlwell nodded.

"Yes; I think he's right."

Drummond turned to Agatha with a sparkle in his eyes. "I quit now, Miss
Strange. You've got there ahead of Stormont; I guess I've made good!"

"You made good when you found the broken range," Agatha replied, giving
him a grateful look, and Drummond's dark face flushed with color as he
turned away.

They lost the rock as they went down hill, but when they made camp the
roar of falling water came faintly across the woods.

"_The creek that runs south_!" said Thirlwell as he lighted the fire.

They started early next morning, but the ground was rough and the sun
was getting low when they came down a rocky hill into a small round
hollow, through which shining water flowed. The opposite slope was in
shadow, but the slanting sunbeams touched a belt of fresh growth that
glowed a vivid green against the somber color of the surrounding trees.

"That," said Thirlwell, "is, no doubt, where the rampikes stood. They've
gone, and young willows have sprung up. Yonder's the low cliff. It looks
as if we had arrived!"

Agatha stopped for a few moments and felt her heart beat. The dream she
had first dreamed long since had come true, but she knew it might not
have done so had she not had Thirlwell's help. In the meantime, the
scene impressed itself upon her brain, so that she could long afterwards
recall it when she wished--the nearly level sunbeams falling acros