d presently. "But
it will take time to locate a decent hiding place, and we've got to
stick within reach of water."

To all of this Betty agreed; personally she'd like to be a thousand
miles away from this hideous place, but they would have to make the
best of things. That willingness of hers to accept conditions without
bemoaning her fate was what had drawn from him his impulsive epithet.

"The thing to do, then," said Kendric, getting up "is to look for a
likely place to spend a long day. And it may be more than one day."

Then Betty made her suggestion, offering it timidly, as though she were
entering a discussion in which, rightly, she had no part:

"Up yonder," and she pointed to the abrupt ridge cutting black across
the stars, "are cliffy places. It's not too far from water. There
ought to be hiding places among the broken boulders. And," she
concluded, "we might be able to peek out and look down and see what was
happening."

No; he had not done her justice. He looked toward her, wondering for a
moment. Then he said briefly: "Right," and they drank again and began
climbing.

It was Betty who, fully an hour later, found the retreat which they
agreed to utilize. Kendric was somewhere above her, making a hazardous
way up a steep bit of cliff, when Betty's voice floated up to him.

"I think I've got it," were her words, guarded but athrill with her
triumph. "Come see. It's a great hole, hid by bushes. I don't like
to go poking into it alone. You can't tell, there might be a bear or a
snake or something inside."

He climbed down to where she stood at the edge of a little level space,
her gown gathered in a hand at each side, her pretty face thrust
forward as she sought to peer into the dark before her. He saw the
clump of bushes but not immediately the hole of which she spoke, so was
it covered and hidden. But at length he made out the irregular opening
and, thrusting the bushes aside with his rifle barrel, judged that
Betty had done well. Here was a perpendicular cleft in the rock, one
of those cracks which not infrequently result from the splitting of
gigantic masses of rock along a well-defined flaw. In some ancient
convulsion this fissure had developed, the two monster fragments of the
mountain had been divided, one had slipped a little, and thereafter
through the ages they had stood face to face, close together. Kendric
could barely squeeze his body through; he found the space slanting