Chapter X.--Watched.


A little higher up the valley narrowed again, the sides came closer and
closer, until they closed in abruptly in a rounded precipice, down which
in the wet season it was evident that a waterfall leaped from a height
above.

"They didn't come down here," Dave said. "If it were anywhere it was
near where the attack was made; the sides slope away a bit there. Now
keep your eyes skinned, and see if you can make out any place where a
man might climb up or down. Our lives may depend on it."

Just as they reached the old encampment Dick said, "Look, Dave, there is
a ledge running up behind that bush; it seems to me that it joins
another ledge halfway up. Tom and I are accustomed to climbing; we will
go up a bit and see if it goes anywhere."

The two lads stopped as they got behind the bush.

"It looks like a path here, Dave; it has certainly been trodden."

The miners came to the spot.

"You are right," Dave said; "it is a path, sure enough. Animals of some
sort come up and down--bears, I should say; maybe goats, and lots of
them, like enough; it is the only way they can get down from the top
into the valley, and they come down to drink."