observing him.

But this morning differed from the first morning, because now, for the
first time, he was ready to do something about the watcher or watchers.
Exploration of the whole valley had not helped. Therefore, there lay at
his feet a considerable coil of rope, the manufacture of which from
plaited strands of the tough grass in his Eden had taken him whole days.
With what patience he could find, he was waiting for the gigantic spout
of milky-colored, perfumed water which would mean that the geyser had
gone off and would erupt no more for exactly forty-four minutes.

Eleven days in the valley!

While he waited, Kirby considered them. Who had made the beautiful
footprints beside him, when he had slept at last after his arrival here?
Why had so many of the queer, fuzzy topped shrubs with immense
yam-shaped roots, which grew here been taken away during that first
sleep, and during all his other periods of sleep? Who had taken them?
Early in his stay, he had learned that the tuberlike roots were good to
eat and would sustain life, and he supposed that the unseen people of
the valley took them for food. But who were these people of the valley?

Who had laid beside him during his first sleep the immense lily with
perfume like that which came with the milky geyser spray--that spray of
death and delight mingled? Why had someone scratched a line in the earth
from him directly to the distant orifice of the geyser? Was this, as he
believed, a signal to come not only to the edge of the orifice, _but to
lower himself down into its depths_? And if the line were intended as a
signal, did the persons who came to the valley while he slept, always
eluding him, wish him well or mean to do him harm?

Last question of all: had the beautiful girl's face he believed he had
seen just once, been real or an hallucination? It had been while he was
kneeling at the very edge of the geyser cone, staring down its many
colored throat, that the vision had appeared. Misty white amidst the
green gloom, the face had been turned up to him, smiling, its lips
forming a kiss, and its great eyes beckoning. Had the face been real or
a dream?

Eleven days in the valley! Now, with his braided rope ready at last, he
was going to do something which might help to answer his questions.

* * * * *

Kirby reached out and began to run his grass rope, yard by yard, through
his hands, searching carefully for any flaw. A canyon