to her in a low, warning
voice that he had found a path, and she hastened up the rocks to where
he stood.

Surely here was a trail winding along the very edge of the ledges, under
masses of overhanging rock--some dizzy runway of prehistoric man,
perhaps trodden, too, by wolf and panther, and later by the lank
mountaineer hunter or smuggler creeping to some eerie unsuspected by any
living creature save, perhaps, the silver-headed eagles soaring through
the fathomless azure vault above.

Below, the pass lay; but they could see no farther into it at first.
However, as they advanced cautiously, clinging to the outjutting cliff,
which seemed maliciously striving to push them out into space, by
degrees crag and trail turned westward and more of the pass came into
view--a wide, smooth cleft in the mountain, curving away toward the
north.

A few steps more and the trail ended abruptly in a wide, grassy space
set with trees, sloping away gently to the west, chopped off sheer to
the east, where it terminated in a mossy shelf overlooking the ravine.

Only a few rods away the dusk of the pass was cut by a glimmer of
sunlight; it was the northern entrance.

Something else was glimmering there, too; dozens of dancing points of
white fire--sunshine on buckle, button, bit and sabre. And the officer
beside her uttered a low, fierce cry and jerked his field glasses free
from the case.

"Their cavalry!" he breathed. "The Yankees are entering the pass, so
help me God!" And he drew his revolver.

So help him God! Something dark and round flew across his line of
vision, curving out into space, dropping, dropping into the depths
below. A clattering report, a louder racket as the rocky echoes,
crossing and recrossing, struck back at the clamoring cliffs.

[Illustration: "White-faced, desperate, she clung to him with the
tenacity of a lynx."]

_So help him God!_ Half stunned, he stumbled to his feet, his dazed eyes
still blurred with a vision of horsemen, vaguely seen through vapors,
stampeding northward; and, at the same instant, she sprang at him,
striking the drawn revolver from his hand, tearing the sabre free and
flinging it into the gulf. White-faced, desperate, she clung to him with
the tenacity of a lynx, winding her lithe limbs around and under his,
tripping him to his knees.

Over and over they rolled, struggling in the grass, twisting, straining,
slipping down the westward slope.

"You--devil!" he panted, as her dark e