“We are; but we’re in for it, and we must carry it through.”
“I suppose so; but one night like this is enough. I say, will it ever be morning?”
There was no reply, and they went on for a few minutes in silence, and then there was a sudden check.
“What’s wrong now?” said Wilton sharply.
“Anything the matter, Lee?” cried Bourne, for the mules seemed to have come to a sudden stop, just as if all had been moved by one impulse communicated to them by their leader.
“I don’t know yet, and I’m obliged to be very cautious.”
“Strikes me that we’ve been coming up and up for the last hour, sir,” said Griggs, “and that we’re now just at the edge of a cañon with a drop down to nowhere just ahead. Skeeter came to a stop all at once.”
“I’ll get down and see what I can make out with the lanthorn.”
“Wait a minute, sir, while I get a rope uncoiled. You shall have it fast round you and the other end to my saddle. These places go straight down sometimes hundreds of feet to a river. Listen! Can you hear water?”
There was silence for a few moments before the doctor said—