"Send the dogs ahead!" ordered Mr. Britton.
The dogs on taking the scent plunged downward through the brush on one side, bringing them out into a narrow trail leading down and across the ravine. Just above, on the other side, they could see the woman watching their every move.
"I've always heard," said one of the men, "there was no getting into this place without you had a special invitation, and it looks like it. Just imagine one of those fellows up there with a gun! Holy Moses! he'd hold the place against all the men the State, or the United States, for that matter, could send down here!"
The ascent of the other side was difficult, but the men put forth their best efforts, and ere they were aware found themselves before the gateway in the rocks, where the woman still awaited them. She silently beckoned them to enter.
Emerging from a narrow pass some six feet in length, they found themselves in a circular basin, about two hundred feet in diameter, surrounded by perpendicular walls of rock from one hundred to five hundred feet in height. The bottom of the basin was level as a floor and covered with a luxuriant growth of grass, while in the centre a small lake, clear as crystal, reflecting the blue sky which seemed to rise like a dome from the rocky walls, gleamed like a sapphire in the sunlight. Sheer and dark the walls rose on all sides, but at one end of the basin, where the rocks were more rough and jagged, a silver stream fell in glistening cascades to the bottom, where it disappeared among the rocks.
For a moment the men, lost in admiration of the scene, forgot that they were in the den of a notorious band of outlaws, but a second glance recalled them to the situation, for on all sides of the basin were
caves leading into the walls of rock, and evidently used as dwellings.
To one of these the woman now led the way. At the entrance a man lay on the ground, his heavy stertorous breathing proclaiming him a victim of some sleeping potion. The woman regarded him with a smile of amusement.
"I made him sleep, Señor," she said, addressing Mr. Britton, "so he will not trouble you."