rd struck a
match and looked beyond the dog; looked and drew back with a startled
exclamation. Where the continuation of the path should have been there
was a gaping chasm pitching steeply down into the Boiling Water.

More lighted matches served to show the extent of the hazard and the
trap-like peril of it. A considerable section of the path had slid away
in a land- or rock-slide, and Ballard saw how he might easily have
walked into the gulf if the dog had not stopped on the brink of it.

"I owe you one, good old boy," he said, stooping to pat the words out on
the St. Bernard's head. "I'll pay it when I can; to you, to your
mistress, or possibly even to your master. Come on, old fellow, and
we'll find another way with less risk in it," and he turned back to
climb over the mesa hill under the stone quarries, approaching the
headquarters camp from the rear.

When the hill was surmounted and the electric mast lights of the camp
lay below, the great dog stopped, sniffing the air suspiciously.

"Don't like the looks of it, do you?" said Ballard. "Well, I guess you'd
better go back home. It isn't a very comfortable place down there for
little dogs--or big ones. Good-night, old fellow." And, quite as if he
understood, the St. Bernard faced about and trotted away toward Castle
'Cadia.

There was a light in the adobe shack when Ballard descended the hill,
and he found Bromley sitting up for him. The first assistant engineer
was killing time by working on the current estimate for the quarry
subcontractor, and he looked up quizzically when his chief came in.

"Been bearding the lion in his den, have you?" he said, cheerfully.
"That's right; there's nothing like being neighbourly, even with our
friend the enemy. Didn't you find him all the things I said he was--and
then some?"

"Yes," returned Ballard, gravely. Then, abruptly: "Loudon, who uses the
path that goes up on our side of the canyon and over into the Castle
'Cadia valley?"

"Who?--why, anybody having occasion to. It's the easiest way to reach
the wing dam that Sanderson built at the canyon inlet to turn the
current against the right bank. Fitzpatrick sends a man over now and
then to clear the driftwood from the dam."

"Anybody been over to-day?"

"No."

"How about the cow-puncher--Grigsby--who brought my horse over and got
my bag?"

"He was riding, and he came and went by way of our bridge below the dam.
You couldn't ride a horse over that hill path."