Just before noon it lightened up a trifle and the rain stopped.
"Let's get out of this!" Monet said, sweeping the frozen assembly in the smoking room with an almost scornful glance.
They found their hats and without further ado they started on a swing about the grounds. It grew lighter and lighter … it seemed for a moment as if the sun would presently peep out from the clouds. They achieved the full length of the parade ground and stopped, panting for breath. Fred wiped his forehead with a huge handkerchief.
"Shall we keep going?" he asked.
Monet nodded. They swung into a wolfish trot again, across a stretch of green turf, avoiding the clogging mud of the beaten trails. They said nothing. Presently their rhythmic flight settled down to a pleasurable monotony. They lost all sense of time and space.
Gradually their speed slackened, and they were conscious that they were winding up … up… It was Monet who halted first. They were on a flat surface again, coming out of a thicket suddenly. There was a level sweep of ground, ending abruptly in space.
"We're on Squaw Rock!" Fred Starratt exclaimed.
The two went forward to the edge of a precipice. The embryo plain leaped violently down a sheer three hundred feet directly into the lap of a foaming river pool. Fred peered over.
"There's the usual Indian legend, isn't there," he asked Monet, "connected with this place?"
Monet moved back with a little shudder. "Yes … I believe there is… The inevitable lovelorn maiden and the leap to death… Well, it's a good plunging place."