It was not far that Genesee led them through the stunted, gnarled growth up the steep sides of the gulch. Half-way to the top there were, in the summer-time, green grass and low brush in which the small game could hide; but above that rose a sheer wall of rock clear up to where the soil had gathered and the pines taken root.
In the dusk they could see no way of surmounting it; yet there was no word of demur, not even a question. He was simply their hope, and they followed him.
And their guide felt it. He knew few of them liked him personally, and it made his victory the greater; but even above that was the thought that his freedom was due to the girl who never guessed how he should use it.
He felt, some way, as if he must account to her for every act she had given him the power to perform, as if his life itself belonged to her, and the sweetness of the thought was with him in every step of the night ride, in every plan for the delivery of the men.
At the very foot of the rock wall he stopped and turned to the man next him. It was Hardy.
"It's a case of 'crawl' here for a few lengths; pass the word along, and look out for your heads."
The next instant he had vanished under the rock wall—Hardy following him; then a flicker of light shone like a star as a guide for the others, and in five minutes every man of them had wriggled through what seemed but a slit in the solid front.
"A regular cave, by hooky!" said the moral guide from Idaho, as he stood upright at last. His voice echoed strangely. "Hooky! hooky! hooky!" sounded from different points where the shadows deepened, suggesting endless additions to the room where they stood.
Genesee had halted and was splitting up some pine for a torch, using the knife Rachel had cut his bonds with, and showing that the handle was stained with blood, as were the sticks of pine he was handling.
"Look for some more sticks around here, and lend a hand," he said. "We need more than one torch. I burnt up what I had in working through that hole. I've been at it for three hours, I reckon, without knowing, till I got the last stone away, whether I'd be in time or find daylight on the other side."