ounting the crest of a ridge, he found himself looking
down into a small circular basin, surrounded by rocky cliffs, the bottom
of which was a smooth, grassy plain, in which, as luck would have it,
several antelopes were grazing. The nearest of these, a fine fat buck
to all appearance, was at least a thousand yards away, which was much
too long a shot for Dick to risk; and he therefore set out to stalk the
animal, leaving the Indians where they were to follow as soon as the
buck should fall.

There were clumps of bush growing quite close up to the base of the
encircling cliffs, offering admirable cover for stalking, as well as a
certain amount of shelter from the sun's scorching rays, and of these
Dick gladly availed himself, ultimately succeeding in bringing down the
buck with a three-hundred yard shot. Then, while waiting for the
Indians to come and break up the quarry, the young man flung himself
down in the shadow of a clump of bush to rest.

Stretched there at length in the cool, lush grass, with the great wall
of sandstone cliff towering before him, it gradually dawned upon Dick
that the enormous mass of rock upon which he was gazing must be that
upon the opposite face of which were those wonderful sculptured pictures
which Earle was doubtless at that moment busily engaged in
photographing, and the thought caused him to regard the cliff with some
interest. There were no sculptures upon it, but as Dick allowed his
gaze to wander over the face of the cliff his quick eye detected a sort
of crack some twenty feet above the surface of the ground, out of which,
as he lay regarding it, there came fluttering one of those splendid
butterflies, a specimen or two of which he was so eager to obtain; and
he at once made up his mind that as soon as the Indians had broken up
the buck and carried it away, he would explore that crack, which looked
wide enough to allow him to squeeze his body through, and access to
which seemed possible by way of a number of narrow ridges and
projections in the face of the rock. Accordingly, as soon as the
Indians had done their work and departed--Dick having informed them that
he proposed to remain in the basin for a while and examine it
thoroughly--he slung his rifle over his shoulder and started to climb
the rock, reaching the crack with but little difficulty.

He found that the aperture was considerably larger than it had appeared
to be when viewed from below and squeezed through it with