is face upward to that gaunt countenance, which
grinned and winked and frowned whenever a bit of twig blazed up, or the
coals were stirred by the trembling negro.

After supper and until the light had nearly faded from the western sky,
the two ladies sat and watched that vast face upon the rocks, its
features growing more and more solemn as the light decreased.

"I wish I had a long-handled broom," said Mrs. Cliff, "for if the dust
and smoke and ashes of burnt leaves were brushed from off its nose and
eyebrows, I believe it would have a rather gracious expression."

As for the captain, he went walking about on the outlying portion of the
plateau, listening and watching. But it was not stone faces he was
thinking of. That night he did not sleep at all, but sat until day-break,
with a loaded gun across his knees, and another one lying on the ground
beside him.

When Miss Markham emerged from the rude tent the next morning, and came
out into the bright light of day, the first thing she saw was her
brother Ralph, who looked as if he had been sweeping a chimney or
cleaning out an ash-hole.

"What on earth has happened to you!" she cried. "How did you get yourself
so covered with dirt and ashes?"

"I got up ever so long ago," he replied, "and as the captain is asleep
over there, and there was nobody to talk to, I thought I would go and try
to find the back of his head"--pointing to the stone face above them.
"But he hasn't any. He is a sham."

"What do you mean?" asked his sister.

"You see, Edna," said the boy, "I thought I would try if I could find any
more faces, and so I got a bit of stone, and scratched away some of the
burnt vines that had not fallen, and there I found an open place in the
rock on this side of the face. Step this way, and you can see it. It's
like a narrow doorway. I went and looked into it, and saw that it led
back of the big face, and I went in to see what was there."

"You should never have done that, Ralph," cried his sister. "There might
have been snakes in that place, or precipices, or nobody knows what.
What could you expect to see in the dark?"

"It wasn't so dark as you might think," said he. "After my eyes got used
to the place I could see very well. But there was nothing to see--just
walls on each side. There was more of the passageway ahead of me, but I
began to think of snakes myself, and as I did not have a club or anything
to kill them with, I concluded I wouldn't go any farthe