ect a dainty modern belle to essay the perils
of that frightful climb. I asked her if she thought she could brave
the ascent, and she laughed gayly in my face.

"Watch!" she cried, and ran eagerly toward the base of the cliff. Like
a squirrel she clambered swiftly aloft, so that I was forced to exert
myself to keep pace with her. At first she frightened me; but
presently I was aware that she was quite as safe here as was I. When we
finally came to my ledge and I again held her in my arms, she recalled
to my mind that for several weeks she had been living the life of a
cave-girl with the tribe of hatchet-men. They had been driven from
their former caves by another tribe which had slain many and carried
off quite half the females, and the new cliffs to which they had flown
had proven far higher and more precipitous, so that she had become,
through necessity, a most practiced climber.

She told me of Kho's desire for her, since all his females had been
stolen and of how her life had been a constant nightmare of terror as
she sought by night and by day to elude the great brute. For a time
Nobs had been all the protection she required; but one day he
disappeared--nor has she seen him since. She believes that he was
deliberately made away with; and so do I, for we both are sure that he
never would have deserted her. With her means of protection gone, Lys
was now at the mercy of the hatchet-man; nor was it many hours before
he had caught her at the base of the cliff and seized her; but as he
bore her triumphantly aloft toward his cave, she had managed to break
loose and escape him.

"For three days he has pursued me," she said, "through this horrible
world. How I have passed through in safety I cannot guess, nor how I
have always managed to outdistance him; yet I have done it, until just
as you discovered me. Fate was kind to us, Bowen."

I nodded my head in assent and crushed her to me. And then we talked
and planned as I cooked antelope-steaks over my fire, and we came to
the conclusion that there was no hope of rescue, that she and I were
doomed to live and die upon Caprona. Well, it might be worse! I would
rather live here always with Lys than to live elsewhere without her;
and she, dear girl, says the same of me; but I am afraid of this life
for her. It is a hard, fierce, dangerous life, and I shall pray always
that we shall be rescued from it--for her sake.

That night the clouds broke, and the moon shone