hind me at any time."

They set off on the unknown path whose end meant to them either
deliverance or death. The chances were against them, but their hearts
were high and their courage steadfast.

They had need of all their fortitude, for they had not advanced forty
paces before danger menaced them.

Drew holding his torch high so as to throw its light as far ahead as
possible, stepped on what seemed to be a crooked stick in the path.
Instantly the stick sprang to life, and a powerful, slimy coil wound
itself around the man's leg as high as the knee.

His first impulse was to spring back. His next was to grind down with
crushing force on the squirming thing beneath his heel. The second
impulse conquered the first and he stood like a statue while a cold
sweat broke out all over his body.

For he had realized by the feel that it was the reptile's head that was
beneath his heel and must be kept there at all costs until the life was
crushed out of it.

Gradually the writhings grew feebler, until at last the coils relaxed
and fell in a heap about his foot.

"What is it Allen?" asked Ruth in alarm at his sudden stop and rigid
pose. "Do you see anything?"

"There's no danger," he assured her, though his voice was not quite
steady. "I must have stepped on a lizard or something like that, and
it gave me a start."

He kicked the mangled reptile out of the path, but not before Ruth's
horrified glance had seen that it was no lizard but something far more
deadly.

Here was a new terror added to the others. For all they knew there
might be a colony of the reptiles in the cave. And in that
semi-tropical region, the chances were vastly in favor of their being
poisonous. At all events it behooved them to advance with redoubled
caution.

They kept a wary lookout for anything that looked like a crooked stick
after that, and their progress, already slow, became still slower as
they went on.

Before long they came to a place where the cave seemed to divide into
three separate passageways. Two of them had nothing to distinguish
them from each other, but in the third they distinguished a faint light
in the distance.

"The blessed light!" exclaimed Ruth fervently.

"I guess that's the path to take, all right," exulted Drew. "In all
probability that light comes from the outlet of the cave. Hurrah for
us, Ruth!"

Ruth echoed his enthusiasm, and they accelerated their pace. The hope
that they had cherished seemed