broken boulders and great blocks of granite in grotesque forms, some
suggesting fantastic monsters, others, in sharp-cut or rounded forms
seemingly dressed by Cyclopean chisels.

The fugitive was not interested in the dimly defined shapes about
him; his attention had been attracted by a crevice in the smooth
rock ledge at his feet. This ledge, barren of vegetation, and as
level as a slab of rough marble, showed a long black line like a
crack in a stone pavement. At the man's feet the crevice was
perhaps two feet wide, but as it stretched toward the west it
narrowed gradually, and disappeared under a mass of disorganized
stones, as a mere slit in the surface.

Presently he set the keg and the tarpaulin-ball on the ground, not
to rest his shoulders, but in order to sink on his knees beside the
crevice. He put his face down over it, listening, peering, but
making no discovery. Then he unwound the lariat from about his
waist, tied it to the rope that had been a halter, and having
fastened a stone to one end, lowered it into the black space. The
length of the lariat slipped through his fingers and the rope was
following when suddenly the rock found lodgment at the bottom. On
making this discovery he drew up the lariat, opened the cloth
containing the food, and began to eat rapidly and with evident
excitement. He did not fail to watch on all sides as he enjoyed
his long delayed meal, and while he ate and thus watched, he thought
rapidly. When the first cravings of appetite were partly satisfied,
he left his baker's bread and bacon on a stone, tied up the rest of
the food in its cloth, rolled this in the tarpaulin, and lowered it
by means of the lariat into the crevice. Then, having tied the end
of the rope to the gun-barrel, he placed the gun across the crevice