“Something tells me we shall be,” nodded Merriwell.
The start was made next day, and the journey continued until one afternoon Merry and Bart Hodge stood looking down into a deep, oblong valley in the heart of the Northern Mazatzals. With them was Cap’n Walter Wiley, a former seafaring man, who had been Frank’s friend in many thrilling adventures in the West. Little Abe had come with them from Mystery Valley, as had Worthington, but they were at the camp Merry had established some distance behind.
“I believe this valley is the one,” Merry declared; “but how are we going to get into it? That’s the question that bothers me.”
“There must be an inlet or outlet or something to the old valley,” said Hodge. “It cannot be just a sink hole dropped down here like a huge oval basin in the mountains. There is a stream running through it, too. It is wooded and watered, and there is plenty of grass for grazing.”
“I am almost positive this valley is the one Benson Clark told me of. I am almost positive it is the one marked on my map. Clark was shot and dying when I found him. He didn’t have time to tell me how to get into the valley.”
“We seem to have struck something that impedes navigation and investigation and causes agitation,” put in Cap’n Wiley. “I would truly love to have the wings of a dove that I could fly from these heights above. Poetry just bubbles from me occasionally. I must set my colossal intellect at work on this perplexing problem and demonstrate my astounding ability to solve entangling enigmas. (Webster’s Dictionary does contain the loveliest words!) Let me think a thought. Let all nature stand hushed and silent while I thunk a think.”
His companions paid little heed to him; but he continued to discuss the problem of descending into the valley.
“I have visited the northern end and the southern end,” said Frank, “and I have explored this side and surveyed the other side through my field glasses. There seems no break in these perpendicular walls. This valley seems like one of those Southwestern mesas inverted. They rise sheer from the plains, and it is impossible to reach the top of many of them. This drops straight down here, and it seems impossible to reach its bottom.”
“The more difficult it is,” said Bart, “the greater becomes my desire to get down there.”
“Same here,” smiled Frank. “The difficulty makes it something of a mystery. Scientific expeditions have spent thousands of dollars in reaching the top of the Mesa Encantada, in New Mexico. By Americans it is called the Enchanted Mesa. Now, the mere fact that we can’t seem to get down into this valley throws an atmosphere of mystery over it, and to me it is an enchanted valley.”