the setting sun. Within--day's ride.'
Does nothing strike you now?"

"Can't say it does," growled Sellon, "except that the old sinner must
have been telling a most infernal lie. We've spent the last four days
fossicking around within a day's ride of his turret-top mountain, and
devil a valley of the kind he describes exists."

"Well, what strikes me is this. He may have meant to say `Within two
days', or three days', or four days' ride.' See?"

"Yes. If that's so he might as well have told us there was plenty of
gold to be found between this and Morocco. It would have helped us
about as much. But now I'll give you my idea. It sounds `tall,' and I
dare say you'll laugh."

"Never mind. Drive on," rejoined Renshaw, looking up from the paper
which he had been studying intently.

"Well, you mentioned the word `crater' just now. If this `valley' of
old Stick-in-the-mud's really exists, it is, as you say, a crater-shaped
concern. Now we've fooled away days in hunting for this place at the
bottom of each and every mountain around. What if, after all, we ought
to be looking for it at the top?"

An eager flash leaped from the other's eyes.

"By Jove! That is an idea!" he burst forth.

"Eh! Not a bad one, I think?" said Sellon, complacently.

"No. It just isn't."

For a few moments both sat staring at each other. Sellon was the first
to speak.

"How about that queer cock's-comb-looking peak we came round this
morning?" he said. But Renshaw shook his head.

"Not that. There's no room for any such place on top of it."

"Not, eh? Look here, Fanning. Have you ever been up it?"

"No. But I've been to the top of every blessed berg of any considerable
height around. I never went up that because it commands no range of
ground that the others don't."

"Very well. My theory is that the best thing we can do is to make the
ascent forthwith. Let me look at the yarn for a moment. Ah, here it
is," he went on, pointing out a place on the soiled and weather-beaten
document. "`We were looking about for a hole in a cave to sleep in, for
it was coldish up there of nights.' `Up there' you notice. Now, from
its conformation, that cock's-comb is about the only mountain top around
here where they would be likely to find `a hole or a cave,' for `up
there' points to the top of the mountain or near it. Do you follow?"

Renshaw nodded.

"All right. `I saw we were skirting a deep valley--though it was more