d."

Wilson hesitated, but in the end he was drawn on. She lay beyond,
somewhere upon the shores of the lake. It was a scramble almost upon
hands and knees. It looked as though it were an impossibility for men
heavily laden ever to make their way to the top. He turned once to
look back, and saw behind him the green sweep of the beautiful valley
of Jaula--then mile upon mile of heavy timber which extended to where
the lusty mountains began once more. He attacked the trail anew and at
the end of twenty minutes reached the top, bruised, cut, and
exhausted. He looked down within the cone--not upon death and
desolation, not upon ashes and tumbled rock, but upon the blue waters
of the lake of Guadiva. It lay nestled within the bosom of this cone
at a depth of just where, on the outside, the green began. The sun
had set early upon it and it now lay a grayish-blue surface surrounded
by a luxuriant tangle of growing things. In a circle about it stood
the dark buttress of the lava sides. It was like a turquoise set in
stone. The contrast to its surroundings was as startling as a living
eye of faultless blue in a grinning skull.

He did not have long to look at it--not long to search its borders for
some sign of the living. The dark came swiftly. As he was about to
turn back, he thought he caught a glimpse of a spiral of smoke upon
the farther side, but as he stared at this, it faded until he was not
sure it had been at all. He took it for a good-night message from her.
Then gold and jewels, though they might be within arm's reach, became
as nothing before the deep desire which almost dragged his heart from
his body--which almost sent him scrambling down the steep sides within
the cone to make a wild dash to reach her side that night.

When he returned, he found Stubbs anxiously waiting for him with
supper ready and a shelter for the night picked out beneath two large
rocks which effectively guarded their rear.

The next morning, as soon as the sun tipped with pink the snow-capped
tops of the Andes, Stubbs was up and studying the map again. The air
during the night had been sharp, but snugly wrapped in their blankets
both men had secured a sound sleep. Towards the early morning,
however, Wilson had begun to toss a little with thoughts of Jo. It
was of her he first spoke. Stubbs interrupted him sharply.

"See here, m' son," he said with some irritation, "we ain't got but a
darned short time in which to work. So th' only way is