nst their faces, sensing the shutting-in
about them of the gentle serenity of the wilderness. They followed
little-travelled trails where she rode ahead and he, following close at
her horse's heels, was glad each time that an open space beyond or a
ridge crested showed him her form pricked clearly against the sky.

They spoke less and less as they went on. Deeper grew the silences
into which they made their way, with only the gush of a mountain brook
or the fluttering of a startled bird or the rustle of dead leaves under
some alert little wild thing, just these sounds occasionally and ever
the soft thud of shod hoofs on leaf mould and loose soil.

The stars multiplied swiftly, grew in brilliancy. But down here close
to the face of the earth where the shadows were, the dark was
impenetrable.

For many a mile Terry led the way through the forests. Steve was on
the verge of suggesting that she had lost her way, when she turned off
to the right and down a long slope in so decided a fashion that he
closed his lips to his suspicion.

She knew where she was going; as he once again saw her body against a
patch of sky--she had gone down the slope and climbed a ridge
ahead--and as he noted her carriage and the poise of a chin for the
instant clearly outlined, he knew that she was sure of herself. Well,
she was that sort of a girl; she might have confidence in herself and a
man might place his confidence with hers.

So at last Terry brought him down into a creek-bed and the bottom on a
steep-sided canon. He merely said, "I'll take your word for it!" when
she told him that this was the deep-cleft ravine which lay like a gash
at the base of the sheer Drop Off Cliffs.

Yonder, perhaps a mile ahead and yet prominently asserting itself to
their view because of a certain widening and straightening of the canon
here, a bold head of cliffs stood out like a monster carving in ebony.
Up there, at the top of these cliffs, was the southern end of Drop Off
Valley.

"And it is up those cliffs that we are going," Terry announced when,
having drawn nearer, they stopped again to gaze upward. "There's a
trail climbing straight up from the bed of the pass; a trail to go
hand-and-foot style. Once on top we'll be among Barbee's herds, Barbee
guessing nothing of our coming since he'll be busy watching the other
ways in. And-- Look!"

They were close together and she gripped his arm in her sudden
amazement while she threw out one han