ave out a peculiar singing sound, somewhat resembling
the noise of grain when it falls from the spout of a
winnowing machine into a sack. It was as if the sand were
on the boil. There was no stopping now unless they wanted
to be swallowed up in the quicksand. Dorothy noticed that
the squaws, and even the braves, looked not a little
anxious. But their leader kept steadily on. The sand
was hard enough and offered sufficient resistance to the
broad hoof of a horse, but if one stood still for a minute
or so, it began gradually to silt up and bury it. It was
a horrible place. When at noon that devil's slough resolved
itself into a comparatively narrow strip, and Dorothy
saw that they could easily have left it, she began to
understand their reason for keeping on such dangerous
ground--_they did not wish to leave any tracks behind
them_. In all truth there was absolutely nothing to show
that they had ever been in that part of the country. At
last they came to what looked like a high hill with a
wall-like cliff surmounting it. They stepped on to the
firm clayey soil where the sage-bush waved, and had their
midday meal. As soon as that had been disposed of, they
resumed their journey.

They now went on foot, and steadily climbed the steep
hillside by the bed of an old watercourse. Dorothy
wondered what was behind the sharply-cut outline of the
cliffs, for it gave the impression that nothing lay beyond
save infinite space. They entered a narrow ravine, and
then suddenly it was as if they had reached the jumping-off
place of the world, for they passed, as it were, into
another land. Immediately beneath them lay a broken
shelf of ground shaped like a horseshoe, the sides of
which were sheer cliffs, the gloomy base of which, many
hundred feet below, were swept by the coldly gleaming,
blue waters of the mighty Saskatchewan. Beyond that,
drowsing in a pale blue haze, lay the broad valley, and
beyond that again the vast purpling panorama of rolling
prairie and black pinewoods until earth and sky were
merged in indistinctness and became one. It resembled a
perch on the side of the world, a huge eyrie with cliffs
above and cliffs below, with apparently only that little
passage, the old creek bed, by which one might get there.
Dorothy realised that people might pass and repass at
the foot of the hill on the other side and never dream
there was such a place behind it. Still less would they
imagine that there was a narrow cleft by w