At noon they paused for a light lunch. Mid-afternoon found them plodding upward; indeed, almost the whole day had showed them a slight up-grade trail.
“Should be coming to the divide,” Johnny said.
“Yes, we should.” The girl’s brow was wrinkled in thought. “Father never spoke of the divide, but there must be one. That’s the place where you stop going up, and start going down?”
“Yes.”
“We must come to it soon.”
But they did not.
Four o’clock found them resting beside a pool. A very strange pool it was. Circular, with moss and ferns growing to its very brink, its water clear as air, it seemed like a great funnel set in the earth.
“As if there had been a sudden cave-in,” said Jean.
Stranger still, they found on the side next to the trail four crude stone steps leading down to the brink of the pool.
“Did you never hear your father speak of this pool?” asked Johnny.