“Let’s go and look, then,” said Chris; “but it doesn’t seem very likely, for it’s all one bank of piled-up stones.”
“That have run down from up yonder like those avalanches we read about. Mind how you come, for it’s a snaky-looking bit. Go on, old chap; I’ll sweep the way for you with my fir-pole.”
Chris felt a creepy sensation at the allusion to snakes, and his eyes looked very wide open as he followed close behind his companion, whose pony picked its steps with the greatest caution, the way growing more and more encumbered with stones as they neared the slope which filled up the gap.
“It looks as if there had been an earthquake. What a roar there must have been when these stones came tumbling down!”
“More likely that water had been coming down in a regular stream for hundreds and hundreds of years till all the earth and small stones had been washed away and made a great hollow underneath which held up the cliff as long as it could, and then gave way all at once.”
“You’re talking as if a torrent ran down from the top of the cliff yonder.”
“Jusso,” said Griggs.
“Then where did it go to?” said Chris.
“That’s what we’ve got to find out. Got a hole of its own underground, perhaps, and dives down, to come up again miles away, perhaps, and—Water it is!”
“Where?” cried Chris excitedly, and he threw up his head, his nostrils expanded, and he sniffed loudly.