of his crime and its penalty, and the unmanning influence of being the
helpless victim of the iron power of the law, rigid, ugly and
demoralising--now with the solution of his life's great problem here
before him in the hills, with the man for whom he had waited so long
caverned in the earth, but a hand-reach away, as it were, his wrongs had
taken a new manifestation in him, and the thing that kept crying out in
him every moment was, Where is Marcile?

It was four o'clock when they reached the pass which only Grassette knew,
the secret way into the Gulch. There was two hours' walking through the
thick, primeval woods, where few had ever been, except the ancient tribes
which had once lorded it here; then came a sudden drop into the earth,
a short travel through a dim cave, and afterward a sheer wall of stone
enclosing a ravine where the rocks on either side nearly met overhead.

Here Grassette gave the signal to shout aloud, and the voice of the
Sheriff called out: "Hello, Bignold!

"Hello! Hello, Bignold! Are you there?--Hello!" His voice rang out
clear and piercing, and then came a silence-a long, anxious silence.
Again the voice rang out: "Hello! Hello-o-o! Bignold! Bigno-o-ld!"

They strained their ears. Grassette was flat on the ground, his ear to
the earth. Suddenly he got to his feet, his face set, his eyes
glittering.

"He is there beyon'--I hear him," he said, pointing farther down the
Gulch. "Water--he is near it."

"We heard nothing," said the Sheriff, "not a sound." "I hear ver' good.