“Then why didn’t he lay his cards honestly on the table?”
“Carter’s not the type,” Ken replied. “Besides, he has to be the whole show. It hurt his ego to be hooked up with Scouts.”
Despite comparatively fast travel, the two Explorers and Pedro were overtaken by dusk long before they had reached their destination. Finally, while it remained light, they brought up at a deep ravine over which hung a suspension bridge of withes.
The structure was not unlike other bridges on which the Scouts previously had passed. It looked older though, as if no one had crossed it in many years.
Four stout cables of braided withes were anchored on either side to a pair of heavy stones. Across the cables, at right angles, twigs had been laid to form a pathway. Above, two smaller cables provided handrails.
“According to directions from Hap, we’re supposed to camp across the river,” Jack said, studying the map. “The distance here was a lot longer than he figured. Maybe we ought to stop right now.”
“No decent place to make camp,” Ken pointed out. “It looks like wild country on across the bridge too!”
Jack nodded, gazing in awe at the strangely jagged peaks ahead. In the last gathering rays of sunset, the rocks gleamed as if inset with gold and precious jewels.
“‘It was a country of strange and unearthly beauty,’” he quoted thoughtfully, “‘but over it all there seemed to brood a spirit of mystery, an omen of fear.’”
“Shut up—you!” growled Ken. “Isn’t this place eerie enough without you adding to it? Don’t remind me of that parchment at a moment like this—all that junk about strange Gods visiting wrath and terror on intruders!”