“Henry,” every time she repeated his name de Spain cared less for what should happen in the rest of the world, “what are we going to do now? We can’t stay here all night––and take what they will greet us with in the morning.”
He answered her question with another: “What about trying to get out by El Capitan?”
She started in spite of herself. “I mean,” he added, “just to have a look over there, Nan.”
“How could you even have a look a night like this?” she asked, overcome at the thought of the dizzy cliff. “It would be certain death, Henry.”
“I don’t mean at the worst to try to cross it till we get a glimpse of daylight. But it’s quite a way over there. I remember some good hiding-places along that trail. We may find one where I can build a little fire and dry you out. I’m more worried over you being wet all night 346 than the rest of it. The question is, Can we find a trail up to where we want to go?”
“I know two or three,” she answered, “if they are only not flooded.”
The storm seemed to have passed, but the darkness was intense, and from above the northern Superstitions came low mutterings of thunder. Compelled to strike out over the rocks to get up to any of the trails toward El Capitan, Nan, helped by de Spain when he could help, led the ascent toward the first ledge they could hope to follow on their dangerous course.
The point at which the two climbed almost five hundred feet that night up Music Mountain is still pointed out in the Gap. An upturned rock at the foot, a stunted cedar jutting from the ledge at the point they finally gained, marked the beginning and end of their effort. No person, looking at that confused wall, willingly believes it could ever have been scaled in the dead of night. Torn, bruised, and exhausted, Nan, handed up by her lover, threw herself at last prostrate on the ledge at the real beginning of their trail, and from that vantage-point they made their way along the eastern side of Music Mountain for two miles before they stopped again to rest.
It was already well after midnight. A favoring spot was seized on by de Spain for the resting-place 347 he wanted. A dry recess beneath an overhanging wall made a shelter for the fire that he insisted on building to warm Nan in her soaked clothing. He found cedar roots in the dark and soon had a blaze going. It was dangerous, both realized, to start a fire, but they concealed the blaze as best they could and took the chance––a chance that more nearly than any that had gone before, cost them their lives. But what still lay ahead of the two justified in de Spain’s mind what he was doing. He acted deliberately in risking the exposure of their position to unfriendly eyes far distant.