“Food, for one thing. You see, this end of the cliff is covered with sea-birds. Another thing, I expect to strike a spring.”
“Oh, I hope you do! The water in the rain pools is already warm.”
“They’ll be dry in a day or two. Say, Winthrope, you might fetch some of those stones–size of a ball. I used to be a fancy pitcher when I was a kid, and we might scare up a rabbit or something.”
“I play cricket myself. But these stones–”
“Better’n a gun, when you haven’t got the gun. Come on. We’ll go in a bunch, after all, in case I need stones.”
With due consideration for Winthrope’s ankle,–not for Winthrope,–Blake set so slow a pace that the half-mile’s walk consumed over half an hour. But his smouldering irritation was soon quenched when they drew near the green thicket at the foot of the cleft. In the almost deathlike stillness of mid-afternoon, the sound of trickling water came to their ears, clear and musical.
“A spring!” shouted Blake. “I guessed right. Look at those green plants and grass; there’s the channel where it runs out in the sand and dries up.”
The others followed him eagerly as he pushed in among the trees. They saw no running water, for the tiny rill that trickled down the ledges was matted over with vines. But at the foot of the slope lay a pool, some ten yards across, and overshadowed by the surrounding trees. There was no underbrush, and the ground was trampled bare as a floor.
“By Jove,” said Winthrope; “see the tracks! There must have been a drove of sheep about.”
“Deer, you mean,” replied Blake, bending to examine the deeper prints at the edge of the pool. “These ain’t sheep tracks. A lot of them are larger.”