on the shoulder of the ridge they stopped to breathe. The
distant noise of falling water came faintly to them.

"We're too far to the left--must have followed the wrong spur," Elliot
explained. "Probably we can cut across the face of the mountain."

Presently they came to an impasse. The gulch between the two spurs
terminated in a rock wall that fell almost sheer for two hundred feet.

The color in the cheeks beneath the eager eyes of the girl was warm.
"Let's try it," she begged.

The young man had noticed that she was as sure-footed as a mountain goat
and that she could stand on the edge of a precipice without dizziness.
The surface of the wall was broken. What it might be beyond he could not
tell, but the first fifty feet was a bit of attractive and not too
difficult rock traverse.

Now and again he made a suggestion to the young woman following him,
but for the most part he trusted her to choose her own foot and hand
holds. Her delicacy was silken strong. If she was slender, she was yet
deep-bosomed. The movements of the girl were as certain as those of an
experienced mountaineer.

The way grew more difficult. They had been following a ledge that
narrowed till it ran out. Jutting knobs of feldspar and stunted shrubs
growing from crevices offered toe-grips instead of the even foothold of
the rock shelf. As Gordon looked down at the dizzy fall beneath them his
judgment told him they had better go back. He said as much to his
companion.

The smile she flashed at him was delightfully provocative. It served to
point the figure she borrowed from Gwen. "So you think I'm a 'fraid-cat,
Mr. Elliot?"

His inclination marched with hers. It was their first adventure together
and he did not want to spoil it by undue caution. There really was not
much danger yet so long as they were careful.

Gordon abandoned the traverse and followed an ascending crack in the
wall. The going was hard. It called for endurance and muscle, as well
as for a steady head and a sure foot. He looked down at the girl wedged
between the slopes of the granite trough.

She read his thought. "The old guard never surrenders, sir," was her
quick answer as she brushed in salute with the tips of her fingers a
stray lock of hair.

The trough was worse than Elliot had expected. It had in it a good deal
of loose rubble that started in small slides at the least pressure.

"Be very careful of your footing," he called back anxiously.

A small grassy pla