Vane merely told him to get breakfast; and most of that day and the next one they drifted with the tides through narrowing waters, though now and then for a few hours they were wafted on by light and fickle winds. At length, they crept into the inlet where they had landed on the previous voyage, and on the morning after their arrival they set out on the march. There was on this occasion reason to expect more rigorous weather, and the load each carried was an almost crushing one. Where the trees were thinner the ground was frozen hard, and even in the densest bush the undergrowth was white and stiff with frost, while overhead a forbidding gray sky hung.
On approaching the rift in the hillside at which he had glanced when they first passed that way, Vane stopped a moment.
"I looked into that place before, but it didn't seem worth while to follow it up," he said. "If you'll wait, I'll go a little farther along it."
Though the air was nipping, Carroll was content to remain where he was, and he spent some time sitting upon a log before a faint shout reached him. Then he rose and, making his way up the hollow, found his comrade standing upon a jutting ledge.
"I thought you were never coming! Climb up; I've something to show you!"
Carroll joined him with difficulty, and Vane stretched out his hand.
"Look yonder!"
Carroll looked and started. They stood in a rocky gateway with a river brawling down the chasm beneath them, but a valley opened up in front. Filled with somber forest, it ran back almost straight between stupendous walls of hills.
"It answers Hartley's description. After all, I don't think it's extraordinary that we should have taken so much trouble to push on past the right place."
"Why?"