"What for dit you did it--go down there?"

"Just for ducks," said Van. He halted for Beth's approach, put her up
on the roan, and once more strode off in the trail ahead with a
promptness that was certainly amazing.

There was no understanding such a person. Beth gave it up. The whole
affair was inexplicable--his attitude towards Searle at the station,
his abduction of herself and the maid, and this trailing of the pair of
them across these terrible places, for no apparent reason in the world.

Her mare followed on in the tracks of the muscular figure, over whom,
for a moment, she had almost wished to yearn. His escape from death
had been so slender--and he would not even rest!

The flat was, in reality, the hog's back or ridge of a lofty spur of
the mountains. Except for the vast bluish canyons and gorges far
below, the view was somewhat restricted here, since towering summits,
in a conclave of peaks, arose to right and left.

After a time, as they swung around on the trend of the ridge, they came
abreast a mighty gap in the mountains to the left, and there, far down,
lay a valley as flattened by perspective as the unruffled surface of a
lake.

Here Van presently halted, peering down and searching the vast gray
floor with the keenest attention. He went on further, and halted
again, Beth meanwhile watching his face with increasing curiosity.

At the third of his stops she gazed no more on the panorama of