n' lost chump sort
of a way I was in until I looked over there into that place where th'
whole business ain't run by dead folks. An' what's more, Professor,
that's the trail for us; for, right where it starts down, there's th'
King's symbol an' th' arrow, all reg'lar, blazed on th' rock."

"Is the trail good enough to make a start on now?" Rayburn asked; "we
won't have more than half an hour more light, but I'd give a lot to get
off this mountain before dark, and every foot down that we go we'll be
that much warmer. We'd stand a pretty fair chance of freeing up here
to-night without any fire."

"Th' trail's all right for a good half-mile, anyway," Young answered;
"an' I guess it's good all th' way. It's pretty much th' same as th' one
we come up by, an' that's good enough, where it don't jump canons, t' go
along in th' dark; but we must rustle if we mean t' do much by
daylight."

We were back at the pyramid by this time, and we found Fray Antonio very
willing to be off with us that we might try to get well down the
mountain before night set in; for at that great elevation the quick
beating of his heart added very sensibly to the throbbing pain of his
wound. Therefore we lost no time in getting our packs upon our backs,
and upon the back of El Sabio, and briskly started downward; and the
keen cold that came into the air, as the sun sunk away behind the
mountain peaks at last, warned us that it was safer to take the risks of
a descent almost in darkness than to stay for the night upon that bleak
mountain-top without a fire.

In twenty minutes we perceived a comforting change in the temperature;
and at the end of an hour--during the last half of which we walked
slowly and cautiously through the fast-thickening darkness--there was
enough warmth in the air about us to make camping for the night
endurable. But we still were at a great elevation, and the thin air was
bitingly keen, and all the more so because of the scant meal that we
had to comfort us and to put strength into us before we wrapped
ourselves in our blankets for sleep.

"What's a mis'rable two pounds of corned-beef among five of us," Young
exclaimed, in a tone of angry contempt, "when every man in th' lot is
hungry enough t' eat th' whole of it, an' th' tin box it comes in, an'
then go huntin' for a square meal? An' t' think o' that sheep I saw! I
say, Rayburn, did you ever eat a roast fore-shoulder of mutton, with
onions an' potatoes baked under it, an' a