basin
and colossal forest bower. Underfoot the floor was spongy with water. An
invisible streamlet whispered under broad-fronded brakes. On every hand
opened tiny vistas of enchantment, where young redwoods grouped
still and stately about fallen giants, shoulder-high to the horses,
moss-covered and dissolving into mold.

At last, after another quarter of an hour, they tied their horses on the
rim of the narrow canyon that penetrated the wilderness of the knolls.
Through a rift in the trees Billy pointed to the top of the leaning
spruce.

"It's right under that," he said. "We'll have to follow up the bed of
the creek. They ain't no trail, though you'll see plenty of deer paths
crossin' the creek. You'll get your feet wet."

Saxon laughed her joy and held on close to his heels, splashing through
pools, crawling hand and foot up the slippery faces of water-worn rocks,
and worming under trunks of old fallen trees.

"They ain't no real bed-rock in the whole mountain," Billy elucidated,
"so the stream cuts deeper'n deeper, an' that keeps the sides cavin' in.
They're as steep as they can be without fallin' down. A little farther
up, the canyon ain't much more'n a crack in the ground--but a mighty
deep one if anybody should ask you. You can spit across it an' break
your neck in it."

The climbing grew more difficult, and they were finally halted, in a
narrow cleft, by a drift-jam.

"You wait here," Billy directed, and, lying flat, squirmed on through
crashing brush.

Saxon waited till all sound had died away. She waited ten minutes
longer, then followed by the way Billy had broken. Where the bed of the
canyon became impossible, she came upon what she was sure was a deer
path that skirted the steep side and was a tunnel through the close
greenery. She caught a glimpse of the overhanging spruce, almost above
her head on the opposite side, and emerged on a pool of clear water in a
clay-like basin. This basin was of recent origin, having been formed by
a slide of earth and trees. Across the pool arose an almost sheer wall
of white. She recognized it for what it was, and looked about for Billy.
She heard him whistle, and looked up. Two hundred feet above, at the
perilous top of the white wall, he was holding on to a tree trunk. The
overhanging spruce was nearby.

"I can see the little pasture back of your field," he called down. "No
wonder nobody ever piped this off. The only place they could see it from
is that speck of