ft in the rocks. On
each hand the cliffs fell apart so that at the top the chasm measured
perhaps ten or twelve feet. The chasm narrowed fifty feet below until
it formed a great V. Below that Drennen could not see until he had
made his precarious way down into the cut. And when he had come to
what had appeared from above to be the closed angle of the V he found
the rest of the way open to him. And the wonder arose from the obvious
fact that there were many rude steps not nature-made but man-made.
There were hand-holds scooped out here and there in the rock;
foot-holds chiselled rudely; and all bore the mark of no little age.
Grass grew scantily in the cracks; a young cedar, hardy, with crooked
roots like the claws of a monster, stood in one of the deeper scooped
hollows; the debris fallen into the man-made steps had accumulated
through the generations. In one of these places, when he had gone
downward a hundred feet, he came to a little space of soft soil which
held the trampled impress of boots.

Now, his rifle slung to his back, his fingers gripping at cracks and
seams and little knobs of stone, he made what speed he could. The way
he followed led along a long, horizontal fissure for a space, then
dipped dangerously near the perpendicular, then slanted off so that the
danger was less, greater speed possible. He did not look down to the
lake, fearing the dizziness which might lay hold of him and whip him
from the face of the cliffs like a fly caught in a rush of wind.

The thought entered his mind, "Ygerne Bellaire had gone on here before
him!" He pictured her confident bearing as she climbed down, her
capable hands clinging to the rocks, her fearless eyes as she looked
down at the blue glint of the lake a thousand feet below, the red curve
of her lips as she smiled her contempt of the danger. Be she what she
might, Ygerne Bellaire was not the coward he had once thought all women.

He grew angry with himself for harbouring a thought into which a tinge
of admiration for her entered. He was coming up with her soon; he
sneered at himself and at her and crept on downward.

Again and again the way looked impossible; again and again he found the
scooped-out handhold which carried him on. And yet it was another two
hours before he had dropped the last ten feet to the narrow, pebbly
shore of Red Deer Lake.

Now there would be no more lost time, no hesitation in finding the path
he must follow. For here, at th