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."

The ridge was wider than it looked, being, where it started, fully two feet across. The boys at once set off up it; as Dick had supposed, it met another ledge running along halfway up the face of the hill. From below this ledge seemed a mere line, but it was really two feet wide in most places, and even at the narrowest was not less than a foot. Two hundred yards along, another ascent was met with, and after half an hour's climbing they found themselves on a level plateau, from which they could see across to the three peaks. The path was everywhere worn smooth, showing that it had been used for ages by animals of some kind.

"One would almost think it had been cut by hand," Dick said; "who would have thought from below that there was such a way as this out of the valley? The best of it is, that it is good enough for the horses to get up as well as us. Well, thank goodness, we have found a back door to that place. It was not a pleasant idea that we might be shut up there with the option of being either shot or starved."

"They would take some time to starve us, Dick; nine horses would last us for a long time."

"Yes, but it would come sooner or later, Tom. Anyhow, I shall feel a great deal more comfortable now I know that there is a way out."

"But the Indians know of it too, Dick, if, as Dave thinks, they came down this way to attack the Mexicans."

"Yes, that is not such a comfortable idea."

"Well, lads, what do you make of it?" Dave shouted to them as they approached the bottom.

"We have been right up to the top; the ponies could go anywhere. It is narrow in places, but we have passed many worse on the way; the cliffs never close up, so even at the worst places there is room for them to get along with their loads."

"What is it like at the top?"

"Level ground along to the drop of the cliffs, hills behind it to the south."

"Well, it is a comfort there is a way down into the valley. Anyhow, since you have been gone, we have been fossicking about, and there is no doubt about the gold; it is the richest place any of us have ever seed."

"Have you found water, Dave?"

"No, that is the one thing bad, we shall have to go out to fetch water, but maybe if we dig in the center of the channel we shall find it. The best place to try will be at the end, right under where the waterfall comes down in winter. There is most always a deep hole in the rock there, where the water and stones and so on have come down and ............