Low whines came up from below.

"Here! Come, Whitie--Ring," he repeated, this time sharply.
Then followed scraping of claws and pattering of feet; and out of

the gray gloom below him swiftly climbed the dogs to reach his
side and pass beyond.

Venters descended, holding to the lasso. He tested its strength
by throwing all his weight upon it. Then he gathered the girl up,

and, holding her securely in his left arm, he began to climb, at
every few steps jerking his right hand upward along the lasso. It

sagged at each forward movement he made, but he balanced himself
lightly during the interval when he lacked the support of a taut

rope. He climbed as if he had wings, the strength of a giant, and
knew not the sense of fear. The sharp corner of cliff seemed to

cut out of the darkness. He reached it and the protruding shelf,
and then, entering the black shade of the notch, he moved blindly

but surely to the place where he had left the saddle-bags. He
heard the dogs, though he could not see them. Once more he

carefully placed the girl at his feet. Then, on hands and knees,
he went over the little flat space, feeling for stones. He

removed a number, and, scraping the deep dust into a heap, he
unfolded the outer blanket from around the girl and laid her upon

this bed. Then he went down the slope again for his boots, rifle,
and the rabbit, and, bringing also his lasso with him, he made

short work of that trip.
"Are--you--there?" The girl's voice came low from the blackness.

"Yes," he replied, and was conscious that his laboring breast
made speech difficult.

"Are we--in a cave?"
"Yes."

"Oh, listen!...The waterfall!...I hear it! You've brought me
back!"

Venters heard a murmuring moan that one moment swelled to a pitch
almost softlyshrill and the next lulled to a low, almost

inaudible sigh.
"That's--wind blowing--in the--cliffs," he panted. "You're far

from Oldring's--canyon."
The effort it cost him to speak made him conscious of extreme

lassitude following upon great exertion. It seemed that when he
lay down and drew his blanket over him the action was the last

before utter prostration. He stretched inert, wet, hot, his body
one great strife of throbbing, stinging nerves and bursting

veins. And there he lay for a long while before he felt that he
had begun to rest.

Rest came to him that night, but no sleep. Sleep he did not want.
The hours of strained effort were now as if they had never been,

and he wanted to think. Earlier in the day he had dismissed an
inexplicable feeling of change; but now, when there was no longer

demand on his cunning and strength and he had time to think, he
could not catch the illusive thing that had sadly perplexed as

well as elevated his spirit.
Above him, through a V-shaped cleft in the dark rim of the cliff,

shone the lustrous stars that had been his lonely accusers for a
long, long year. To-night they were different. He studied them.

Larger, whiter, more radiant they seemed; but that was not the
difference he meant. Gradually it came to him that the

distinction was not one he saw, but one he felt. In this he
divined as much of the baffling change as he thought would be

revealed to him then. And as he lay there, with the singing of
the cliff-winds in his ears, the white stars above the dark, bold

vent, the difference which he felt was that he was no longer
alone.

CHAPTER IX. SILVER SPRUCE AND ASPENS
The rest of that night seemed to Venters only a few moments of

starlight, a dark overcasting of sky, an hour or so of gray
gloom, and then the lighting of dawn.

When he had bestirred himself, feeding the hungry dogs and
breaking his long fast, and had repacked his saddle-bags, it was

clear daylight, though the sun had not tipped the yellow wall in
the east. He concluded to make the climb and descent into

Surprise Valley in one trip. To that end he tied his blanket upon
Ring and gave Whitie the extra lasso and the rabbit to carry.

Then, with the rifle and saddle-bags slung upon his back, he took
up the girl. She did not awaken from heavy slumber.

That climb up under the rugged, menacing brows of the broken
cliffs, in the face of a grim, leaning boulder that seemed to be

weary of its age-long wavering, was a tax on strength and nerve
that Venters felt equally with something sweet and strangely

exulting in its accomplishment. He did not pause until he gained
the narrow divide and there he rested. Balancing Rock loomed

huge, cold in the gray light of dawn, a thing without life, yet
it spoke silently to Venters: "I am waiting to plunge down, to

shatter and crash, roar and boom, to bury your trail, and close
forever the outlet to Deception Pass!"

On the descent of the other side Venters had easy going, but was
somewhat concerned because Whitie appeared to have succumbed to

temptation, and while carrying the rabbit was also chewing on it.
And Ring evidently regarded this as an injury to himself,

especially as he had carried the heavier load. Presently he
snapped at one end of the rabbit and refused to let go. But his

action prevented Whitie from further misdoing, and then the two
dogs pattered down, carrying the rabbit between them.

Venters turned out of the gorge, and suddenly paused stock-still,
astounded at the scene before him. The curve of the great stone

bridge had caught the sunrise, and through the magnificent arch
burst a gloriousstream of gold that shone with a long slant down

into the center of Surprise Valley. Only through the arch did any
sunlight pass, so that all the rest of the valley lay still

asleep, dark green, mysterious, shadowy, merging its level into
walls as misty and soft as morning clouds.

Venters then descended, passing through the arch, looking up at
its tremendousheight and sweep. It spanned the opening to

Surprise Valley, stretching in almost perfect curve from rim to
rim. Even in his hurry and concern Venters could not but feel its

majesty, and the thought came to him that the cliff-dwellers must
have regarded it as an object of worship.

Down, down, down Venters strode, more and more feeling the weight
of his burden as he descended, and still the valley lay below

him. As all other canyons and coves and valleys had deceived him,
so had this deep, nestling oval. At length he passed beyond the

slope of weathered stone that spread fan-shape from the arch, and
encountered a grassyterracerunning to the right and about on a

level with the tips of the oaks and cottonwoods below. Scattered
here and there upon this shelf were clumps of aspens, and he

walked through them into a glade that surpassed in beauty and
adaptability for a wild home, any place he had ever seen. Silver

spruces bordered the base of a precipitous wall that rose
loftily. Caves indented its surface, and there were no detached

ledges or weathered sections that might dislodge a stone. The
level ground, beyond the spruces, dropped down into a little

ravine. This was one dense line of slender aspens from which came
the low splashing of water. And the terrace, lying open to the

west, afforded unobstructed view of the valley of green treetops.
For his camp Venters chose a shady, grassy plot between the

silver spruces and the cliff. Here, in the stone wall, had been
wonderfully carved by wind or washed by water several deep caves

above the level of the terrace. They were clean, dry, roomy.