“He’s coming to, Toma. Give him another shake.”
Dick stared about him guiltily. He surmised that he had slept only a few minutes but the sight of the round orb of the sun, high above the horizon, quickly disillusioned him.
“Why—why didn’t you wake me?” he gasped. “How long have I been here? What time is it, corporal?”
“Nine o’clock. You’ve slept four hours.”
“I did?” Dick’s eyes were wide with dismay.
“Yes, you did. But don’t think I blame you,” Rand laughed. “You couldn’t help it. It was inevitable. No person can manage without sleep. I had a little doze myself. We can’t lose the pack-train now. It will be easy to follow their tracks in broad daylight. We’ll catch up to them again before nightfall.”
All day they travelled, passing through a country of hills and rocks, with mountain peaks towering above them. The summits of the mountains were lost in an enveloping, vaporous mist. Shaggy heights were resplendent in rainbow garb. The deep brown of rock surfaces was a decided contrast to the scintillating white of the trail.
Late in the afternoon the tracks led them across a wind-swept plateau, thence down to a narrow defile which ran uninterruptedly westward for a distance of four or five miles. As they approached its end, Corporal Rand was surprised into a quick ejaculation.
“Can’t see how we can get out of this. Surely they didn’t climb those slippery rocks.”
A few yards further on, they found the solution to the mystery. On the left they saw an opening in the rocks, scarcely more than four feet wide—in reality a wide crack that split the immense formation of rock from top to bottom. Passing through it, they emerged into what appeared to be a wide valley, stretching far ahead. The corporal gasped in amazement. Dick stood bewildered. Even Toma so far forgot himself as to cry out in wonder.