thing left over from your dinner
on the trail to-day?"

Rod unstrapped the small pack in which the hunters carried their food
while on the trail, and which had been upon his shoulders since noon.

"There is a double handful of coffee, a cupful of tea, plenty of salt
and a little bread," he said.

"Good! Few enough supplies for three people in this kind of a
wilderness--but they'll save Mukoki!"

Wabi went back, while Rod, sheltered behind a rock, watched the narrow
incline into the chasm. He almost hoped the Woongas would dare to
attempt a descent, for he was sure that he and Wabi would have them at a
terrible disadvantage and with their revolvers and three rifles could
inflict a decisive blow upon them before they reached the bottom. But he
saw no sign of their enemies. He heard no sound from above, yet he knew
that the outlaws were very near--only waiting for the protecting
darkness of night.

He heard the crackling of Wabi's fire and the odor of coffee came to
him; and Wabi, assured that their presence was known to the Woongas,
began whistling cheerily. In a few minutes he rejoined Rod behind the
rock.

"They will attack us as soon as it gets good and dark," he said coolly.
"That is, if they can find us. As soon as they are no longer able to see
down into the chasm we will find some kind of a hiding-place. Mukoki
will be able to travel then."

A memory of the cleft in the chasm wall came to Rod and he quickly
described it to his companion. It was an ideal hiding-place at night,
and if Mukoki was strong enough they could steal up out of the chasm and
secure a long start into the south before the Woongas discovered their
flight in the morning. There was just one chance of failure. If the spy
whose trail had revealed the break in the mountain to Rod was not among
the outlaws' wounded or dead the cleft might be guarded, or the Woongas
themselves might employ it in making a descent upon them.

"It's worth the risk anyway," said Wabi. "The chances are even that your
outlaw ran across the fissure by accident and that his companions are
not aware of its existence. And they'll not follow our trail down the
chasm to-night, I'll wager. In the cover of darkness they will steal
down among the rocks and then wait for daylight. Meanwhile we can be
traveling southward and when they catch up with us we will give them
another fight if they want it."

"We can start pretty soon?"

"Within an hour."

For some time the two