-where could it lead to?

At length the vanishing-point was reached, and horse and rider rounded
the bend. And immediately the reason was made plain. But even the
reason sank into insignificance before the splendor of the scene which
presented itself.

He was standing on a sort of shelf cut out of the hillside. It was
not more than fifty yards long, and some twenty wide, but it stood
high over a wide, far-reaching valley, scooped out amongst the great
foot-hills which reared their crests about him on every side. Far as
the eye could see was spread out the bright, early summer green of the
grass-land hollow. For the most part the surrounding hills were
precipitate, and rose sheer from the bed of the valley, but here and
there a friendly landslide had made the place accessible. Just where
he stood, and all along the shelf, the face of the hill formed a
precipice, both above and below, and the only approach to it was the
way he had come round from the other side of the hill.

And the object, the reason, of that hidden road. A small hut crushed
into the side of the sheer cliff. A dugout of logs, and thatch, and
mud plaster. A hut with one fronting door, and a parchment window; a
hut such as might have belonged to some old-time trapper, who had
found it necessary to set his home somewhere secure from the attacks
of marauding Indians.

And what a strategic position it was! One approach to be barred and
barricaded; one laborious road which the besieged could sweep with his
rifle-fire, and beat back almost any horde of Indians in the country.
He led his horse on toward the hut. The door was closed, and the
parchment of the window hid the interior.

The outside appearance showed good repair. He examined it critically.
He walked round its three sides, and, as he came to the far side of
it, and thoughtfully took in the method of its construction, he
suddenly became aware of another example of the old trapper's cunning.
The cliff that rose sheer up for another two or three hundred feet
slightly sloped backward at the extremity of the shelf, and here had
been cut a rude sort of staircase in the gray limestone of which it
was composed. There were the steps, dangerous enough, and dizzying to
look at, rising up, up, to the summit above. He ventured to the brink
where they began, but instantly drew back. Below was a sheer drop of
perhaps five hundred feet.

Turning his eyes upward, his fancy conjured up a picture of the poor
wre