n feet. If you are careful
about your health and don't get shot you ought to live sixty or seventy
years yet, because you are surely a robust youngster, and so you're
richer in time than in anything else. I am, too, and for these reasons
we can afford to go into the very heart of the high mountains, where
we'll be well hidden, and bide until the danger of the Sioux pursuit has
passed."

"A long speech, Jim, but probably a true one. Do we start right away?"

"Aye, lad, the sooner the better. Both the horses and ourselves are fed
and refreshed. We don't know what this shelf leads to, but we can soon
find out."

They resaddled, but did not mount, letting the well-trained horses
follow, and proceeded along the shelf, until they entered a narrow pass,
where they were compelled to go in single file, the hunter leading the
way. Far below him Will heard the creek roaring as it foamed forward in
rapids, and he was glad that the horses were, what Boyd had declared
them to be, trained mountain climbers, walking on with even step,
although he felt an instinctive desire to keep as far as he could from
the cliff's edge, and lean against the slope on the other side. But
Boyd, made familiar with such trails by his years of experience in the
mountains, whistled gaily.

"Everything comes our way," he said. "If we were at the head of a trail
like this we could hold it against the entire Sioux nation, if we had
cartridges enough."

"I hope it won't go on forever," said Will. "It makes me feel a little
dizzy."

"It won't. It's opening out now. The level land is widening on either
side of the creek and that means another valley not much farther on."

But it was a good four miles before they emerged into a dip, covering
perhaps two square miles, covered heavily with forest and with a
beautiful little blue lake at the corner. Will uttered a cry of pleasure
at the sight of the level land, the great trees green with foliage, and
the gem of a lake.

"We couldn't have found a finer place for a camp," he said. "We're the
children of luck."

But the wise hunter shook his head.

"When the morning's cold we hate to pull ourselves out of comfortable
beds," he said, "and for mountaineers such as we've become I'll admit
that this valley looks like the Garden of Eden, but here we do not
bide."

"Why not?"

"Because it's too good for us to live in. The Sioux, of course, know of
it, and what draws us draws them, too. For a long time the fin