bliterated by the grain.

Kenkenes alighted and struck through the wheat toward the pitted front
of the cliffs. Before him was a narrow gorge that debouched into the
great valley over a ledge of stone three feet in height. After much
winding the ravine terminated in a wide pocket, a quarter of a mile
inland. Exit from this cul-de-sac was possible toward the east by a
steep slope leading to the top of one of the interior ridges of the
desert. Kenkenes did not pause at the cluster of houses. The roofs
had fallen in and the place was quite uninhabitable. But he leaped up
into the little valley and followed it to its end. There he climbed
the sharp declivity and turned back in the direction he had come, along
the flank of the hill that formed the north wall of the gorge. The
summit of the height was far above him, and the slope was covered with
limestone masses. There had been no frost nor rain to disturb the
original rock-piling. Only the agencies of sand and wind had
disarranged the distribution on which the builders of the earliest
dynasty had looked. And this was weird, mysterious and labyrinthine.

At a spot where a great deal of broken rock encumbered the ground,
Kenkenes unslung his wallet and tested the fragments with chisel and
mallet. It was the same as the quarry product--magnesium limestone,
white, fine, close-grained and easily worked. But it was broken in
fragments too small for his purpose. Above him were fields of greater
masses.

"Now, I was born under a fortunate sign," he said aloud as he scaled
the hillside; "but I fear those slabs are too long for a life-sized
statue."

On reaching them he found that those blocks which appeared from a
distance to weigh less than a ton, were irregular cubes ten feet high.

He grumbled his disappointment and climbed upon one to take a general
survey of his stoneyard. At that moment his eyes fell on a block of
proper dimensions under the very shadow of the great cube upon which he
stood. It was in the path of the wind from the north and was buried
half its height in sand.

Kenkenes leaped from his point of vantage with a cry of delight.

"Nay, now," he exclaimed; "where in this is divine disfavor?" He
inspected his discovery, tried it for solidity of position and purity
of texture. Its location was particularly favorable to secrecy.

It stood at the lower end of an aisle between great rocks. All view of
it was cut off, save from that position ta