“We can get down here ourselves, all right,” said Hodge. “What do you think about the horses?”
“It will be a ticklish job to bring them down,” acknowledged Merry; “but I am in for trying it.”
“If one of the beasts should lose his footing and take a tumble——”
“We’d be out a horse, that’s all. We must look out that, in case such a thing happens, no one of us is carried down with the animal.”
They returned to the place where Wiley, Worthington, and little Abe were waiting. When Frank announced that they could get into the valley that way, the deranged man suddenly cried:
“There’s doom down there! Those who enter never return!”
“That fellow is a real cheerful chap!” said the sailor. “He has been making it pleasant for us while you were gone, with his joyful predictions of death and disaster.”
They gave little heed to Worthington. Making sure the packs were secure on the backs of the animals, they fully arranged their plans of descent and entered the fissure. More than an hour later they reached the valley below, having descended without the slightest mishap.
“Well, here we are,” smiled Merry. “We have found our way into the Enchanted Valley at last.”
“Never to return! Never to return!” croaked Worthington.