For a mile or more straight ahead, and right and left as far as he could see the ground stretched away, level and treeless, to the foot of a cliff-like palisade—an appalling hundred foot terrace, rising sheer from the flat below. From the top of this first high point a sort of broad shelf, or plateau, dipped back for another couple of miles into the dark, ringing circle of a twin-peaked mountain. And farther still, like a faint smoke haze upon the middle sky, stood the towering saw edge of the coastal divide, the final great barrier that forbade the crossing from valley to valley of all things that did not follow the soaring eagle's route.
A dank wind drew down through the flue of the mountains, bringing a first warning flutter of snowflakes. In the immediate foreground the double peaks loomed in bold outline, and it would have needed a dull imagination, indeed, that lacked a name for this individual mountain. It was like a saddle sculptured on colossal proportions—pommel, cantle, even the stirrup—chiseled realistically in sweeping, thousand-foot strokes. A dip of the ridge formed a horse's back and withers; pointed ears and grotesquely shaped head were blocked out in strong relief by an up-jutting pinnacle beyond; and in order that nothing should be lacking, a broad, snow-filled crevice twisted down the mountainside to give the appearance of a long, flowing tail.
Dexter viewed the stupendous statue with critical appreciation, but as he looked, for some reason, he began to feel a trifle foolish. The Saddle Mountain was a sight worth observing, but he had not come on a wearying journey to awe himself with scenery. He found himself wondering why he really had come. Whom did he expect to find here? Alison Rayne? He shook his head incredulously. After traveling all this distance it suddenly struck him that he had blundered off through the forest on a vain and brainless errand—chasing the chimera of another man's dream.
With a flat feeling of disillusionment, he stood for a moment gazing vacantly at the lonesome, barren peaks. Gradually his glance shifted downward to the plateau that formed the base of the mountain. He was scanning the top of the nearest palisade, without expecting to make any discovery of interest, when his body suddenly stiffened and his pupils contracted sharply. Something was moving along the rim of the precipice.
It was a grayish-white object, diminished by distance to a pin-head speck, and barely discernible against the snowy background. Whatever it was, it was walking, and while Dexter watched, the tiny shape moved to the edge of the palisade, passed over the brink, and then started to climb down the steep side of the cliff.
He nodded to himself when he saw what had happened. Only a sheep or mountain goat would be apt to attempt the perilous descent of a sheer wall of rock. Probably it was a bighorn sheep, driven from the summits by the approaching storm, and taking the shortest route down to the valley pastures. To make certain, however, he uncased his binoculars to observe the creature in magnified view.
He trained the lenses upon the distant cliff-side, and once more picked up the climbing shape. For an instant he gazed dubiously, and then his wrist tendons drew taut as wires as he tried to steady the leveled glasses. It was not a sheep he saw, but a human shape—clinging against the precipitous height.
Amazed—unbelieving—he gingerly readjusted the focus of his binoculars, and in a moment the distant cliff-side seemed to draw towards him in sharper perspective. The diminutive shape suddenly enlarged to doll-size, and he made out a straight, slender figure, clad in white sweater and knickers. He stared with straining vision, and recognition came like a blow between the eyes. The mountain climber was Alison Rayne.