that stood
out from the main wall. Some leaned against the cliff, others against
each other; many stood sheer and alone; all were crumbling, cracked,
rotten. It was a place of yellow, ragged ruin. The passage narrowed as
he went up; it became a slant, hard for him to stick on; it was smooth
as marble. Finally he surmounted it, surprised to find the walls still
several hundred feet high, and a narrow gorge leading down on the other
side. This was a divide between two inclines, about twenty yards wide.
At one side stood an enormous rock. Venters gave it a second glance,
because it rested on a pedestal. It attracted closer attention. It was
like a colossal pear of stone standing on its stem. Around the bottom
were thousands of little nicks just distinguishable to the eye. They
were marks of stone hatchets. The cliff-dwellers had chipped and chipped
away at this boulder fill it rested its tremendous bulk upon a mere
pin-point of its surface. Venters pondered. Why had the little stone-men
hacked away at that big boulder? It bore no semblance to a statue or an
idol or a godhead or a sphinx. Instinctively he put his hands on it
and pushed; then his shoulder and heaved. The stone seemed to groan, to
stir, to grate, and then to move. It tipped a little downward and hung
balancing for a long instant, slowly returned, rocked slightly, groaned,
and settled back to its former position.

Venters divined its significance. It had been meant for defense. The
cliff-dwellers, driven by dreaded enemies to this last stand, had
cunningly cut the rock until it balanced perfectly, ready to be
dislodged by strong hands. Just below it leaned a tottering crag that
would have toppled, starting an avalanche on an acclivity where no
sliding mass could stop. Crags and pinnacles, splintered cliffs, and
leaning shafts and monuments, would have thundered down to block forever
the outlet to Deception Pass.

"That was a narrow shave for me," said Venters, soberly. "A balancing
rock! The cliff-dwellers never had to roll it. They died, vanished,
and here the rock stands, probably little changed.... But it might serve
another lonely dweller of the cliffs. I'll hide up here somewhere, if I
can only find water."

He descended the gorge on the other side. The slope was gradual, the
space narrow, the course straight for many rods. A gloom hung between
the up-sweeping walls. In a turn the passage narrowed to scarce a dozen
feet, and here was darkness of night