"The end of things!" cried Dick. "Not a bit of it! Don't you see, on the other side of the cañon, exactly opposite, that little ravine which goes winding up the mountain until it loses itself among the trees? Well, that is the continuation of the trail. Come down here to the edge and I'll show you."
Dismounting from our horses, we advanced as near the rim of the chasm as we dared, when Dick, pointing across to the other side, said:
"Look there, Frank, about a foot below the top. Do you see those two square niches cut in the face of the rock? This place was spanned by a bridge once, and those two niches are where the ends of the big stringers rested."
"It does look like it!" I exclaimed. "If there are other similar niches on this side, that would settle it. Take hold of my feet, will you, while I stick my head over the edge and see?"
With Dick firmly clasping my ankle by way of precaution, I crept to the rim and craned my neck out over the precipice as far as I dared venture. As we had expected, there were the two corresponding niches, while about ten feet below them were two others, the existence of which puzzled me. Squirming carefully back again, I rose to my feet and told Dick what I had seen.
"Two others, eh?" said he. "That's easily explained. Look across again and you will see that there are two in the face of the opposite cliff to match them. Those people not only laid two big stringers across the cañon, but they supported them from below with four stays set in those lower holes."
"That must be it!" I exclaimed. "They did things well, didn't they—it is on a par with the work they expended on the trail. The trail itself, of course, went on up that little ravine and has since been washed out by the rains."
"Yes; and the bridge has rotted and fallen into the stream; unless they destroyed it purposely when they abandoned the mine."
"Well, Dick," said I. "It seems fairly sure that the mine was over there, somewhere in the rough country on the other side of the cañon. The question is, how are we to get over there?"
"Yes, that's the question all right. We can't get down here. That is plain enough. We shall have to find some other way. And that there is another way is pretty certain. See here! This cañon comes down from the north side of the mountain, runs out into the valley to the point where we struck it day before yesterday, doubles back, and joins the streams coming down from Mescalero, as well as those others which flow down from the north side of the peak."