ms evidently were none of the
pleasantest. If there was an aurora I neither knew nor cared. My slumber
was dreamless.

CHAPTER III. RUTH VENTNOR

The dawn, streaming into the niche, awakened us. A covey of partridges
venturing too close yielded three to our guns. We breakfasted well, and
a little later were pushing on down the cleft.

Its descent, though gradual, was continuous, and therefore I was not
surprised when soon we began to come upon evidences of semi-tropical
vegetation. Giant rhododendrons and tree ferns gave way to occasional
clumps of stately kopek and clumps of the hardier bamboos. We added a
few snow cocks to our larder--although they were out of their habitat,
flying down into the gorge from their peaks and table-lands for some
choice tidbit.

All that day we marched on, and when at night we made camp, sleep came
to us quickly and overmastering. An hour after dawn we were on our way.
A brief stop we made for lunch; pressed forward.

It was close to two when we caught the first sight of the ruins.

The soaring, verdure-clad walls of the canyon had long been steadily
marching closer. Above, between their rims the wide ribbon of sky was
like a fantastically shored river, shimmering, dazzling; every cove
and headland edged with an opalescent glimmering as of shining pearly
beaches.

And as though we were sinking in that sky stream's depths its light
kept lessening, darkening imperceptibly with luminous shadows of ghostly
beryl, drifting veils of pellucid aquamarine, limpid mists of glaucous
chrysolite.

Fainter, more crepuscular became the light, yet never losing its
crystalline quality. Now the high overhead river was but a brook; became
a thread. Abruptly it vanished.

We passed into a tunnel, fern walled, fern roofed, garlanded with tawny
orchids, gay with carmine fungus and golden moss. We stepped out into a
blaze of sunlight.

Before us lay a wide green bowl held in the hands of the clustered
hills; shallow, circular, as though, while plastic still, the thumb
of God had run round its rim, shaping it. Around it the peaks crowded,
craning their lofty heads to peer within.

It was about a mile in its diameter, this hollow, as my gaze then
measured it. It had three openings--one that lay like a crack in the
northeast slope; another, the tunnel mouth through which we had come.
The third lifted itself out of the bowl, creeping up the precipitous
bare scarp of the western barrier straight