instructions to Ruth,
and we set forth down the gray road. Hardly had we taken a few steps
when there came a faint cry from her.

"Dick! Dick--come here!"

He sprang to her, caught her hands in his. For a moment, half frightened
it seemed, she considered him.

"Dick," I heard her whisper. "Dick--come back safe to me!"

I saw his arms close about her, hers tighten around his neck; black hair
touched the silken brown curls, their lips met, clung. I turned away.

In a little time he joined me; head down, silent, he strode along beside
me, utterly dejected.

A hundred more yards and we turned. Ruth was still standing on the
threshold of the house of mystery, watching us. She waved her hands,
flitted in, was hidden from us. And Drake still silent, we pushed on.

The walls of the gateway were close. The sparse vegetation along the
base of the cliffs had ceased; the roadway itself had merged into the
smooth, bare floor of the canyon. From vertical edge to vertical edge
of the rocky portal stretched a curtain of shimmering mist. As we drew
nearer we saw that this was motionless, and less like vapor of water
than vapor of light; it streamed in oddly fixed lines like atoms of
crystals in a still solution. Drake thrust an arm within it, waved it;
the mist did not move. It seemed instead to interpenetrate the arm--as
though bone and flesh were spectral, without power to dislodge the
shining particles from position.

We passed within it--side by side.

Instantly I knew that whatever these veils were, they were not moisture.
The air we breathed was dry, electric. I was sensible of a decided
stimulation, a pleasant tingling along every nerve, a gaiety almost
light-headed. We could see each other quite plainly, the rocky floor on
which we trod as well. Within this vapor of light there was no ghost
of sound; it was utterly empty of it. I saw Drake turn to me, his mouth
open in a laugh, his lips move in speech--and although he bent close to
my ear, I heard nothing. He frowned, puzzled, and walked on.

Abruptly we stepped into an opening, a pocket of clear air. Our ears
were filled with a high, shrill humming as unpleasantly vibrant as the
shriek of a sand blast. Six feet to our right was the edge of the
ledge on which we stood; beyond it was a sheer drop into space. A shaft
piercing down into the void and walled with the mists.

But it was not that shaft that made us clutch each other. No! It was
that through it uprose a c