The result was instantaneous, and in a certain sense satisfactory. There were a sharp explosion and a quick flash of flame that burned Todd's right hand so severely that he ran to plunge it in the cooling waters of the stream. When he returned to the hut, some five minutes later, ruefully nursing his wounded hand, the only trace remaining of his handkerchief was a film of ashes on the doorstep.
"I don't care," he remarked, stoutly. "I did make a fire, anyhow, and I would do it again if I only had another handkerchief. As I haven't, I suppose I must give up the idea for the present, and live on that beastly raw corn until I can find some other kind of tinder. If I only had some cotton, that would be the very thing. I might as well wish for matches, though, and done with it, as to hope for cotton in a place like this. It was a good scheme, all the same; every bit as good as Serge Belcofsky's brimstone and feathers, and I would have had an elegant fire by this time if I only hadn't burned my hand."
After Todd had again visited the field and brought back two more ears of the much-despised corn, from which he expected to make a frugal supper that night, and an equally unsatisfactory breakfast on the following morning, the sun was so low in the western sky that the shadows of the cliffs on that side extended clear across the valley. Night was close at hand, and the lad dreaded its loneliness in that strange place, without fire, or means of defence against its unknown dangers. For all that he knew, both wild men and wild beasts might only be awaiting the coming of darkness to attack him.
"I wonder if I hadn't better climb a tree," he reflected, "or shut myself up in that hen-house? It at least has a stout door, which is more than this hut possesses."
While he sat on the doorstep thinking of these things, and watching the shadows pursue the waning sunlight up the face of the eastern cliffs, his eye fell on something that caused him to start to his feet with an exclamation. From some unseen source high up on the rocky wall a slender column of blue smoke, curling gracefully towards the summit of the mesa, was plainly visible. Nor was that all; for even as the lad gazed wonderingly at it, a human figure clad in white appeared near the place from which the smoke ascended, and after standing for a moment as though looking expectantly down the valley, again moved out of sight.
HE MADE A MISSTEP AND FELL HEAVILY.
"That explains everything," cried Todd. "The natives are cliff-dwellers, and live somewhere up there among the rocks. From all accounts of such people, although they are filthy and degraded, they are not half a bad lot. So I'm going to hunt them out before it grows dark. Of course they won't be able to understand a word I say, but I'll make that all right somehow."
The excited boy had already set off in the direction indicated by the smoke, and before long he came across a plainly marked trail leading among the trees directly toward the cliffs. As it reached them it bent sharply upward, becoming steeper and more rugged with every step.
Until now Todd had not realized how very weak he had grown through long fasting and from his recent terrible experience on the desert. Every few steps he was obliged to pause for breath, and several times he was so overcome by giddiness that he was compelled to sit down. Thus his upward progress was very slow, and the sun had set before he reached a point at which the trail ended. Above him was a sheer face of rock some fifteen feet high, in which were cut rude steps and handholds. It was like a perpendicular rock ladder, and in his weakness Todd regarded it with dismay. He was afraid, too, of his wounded hand, and wondered if he could hold on by it.