would have caught them, they felt an overhanging ledge and scrambled up
on it, Ace lending a hand to his less proficient chum.

From the far end of the tunnel shone a faint glow, as through a sheet of
water! They had reached a cave mouth.

Creeping cautiously along the ledge, they approached the light. From its
pallor and from the roaring of the rapids they at first thought they were
behind a waterfall. But a closer approach showed them that it shone
through leaves of plants that grew just outside, where they over-arched
the escaping stream (gooseberries, they later found, and other vines
that completely hid the exit of the stream).

It was a ticklish proposition getting out along the rock ledge, which
narrowed to a mere rough crack into which they could dig the sides of
their soles. But by holding hands and clinging with all their might,
while they propitiated the law of gravity by leaning their weight against
the wall, they slowly scaled a way above the churning stream, and so to
where they could cling to the thorny bushes.

It was night. The light had been the moon shining straight into the cave
mouth. But where they were, on what side of the ridge, they could not
tell.

They were safe, though! Saved from the blind horror of being lost in the
cave! But wet and chilled to the marrow now in the night wind that blew
down canyon, famished, footsore, and aching for sleep. Still how
wonderfully fresh and perfumed everything smelled after the cave.

"Got any matches in your waterproof match box?" asked Ted with chattering
teeth, throwing himself flat on the up side of a rock that would keep him
from rolling. "Why, this is funny!" for there was no sign of the stream a
few yards beyond the cave mouth. They were at the head of some former
rock slide, and the stream simply disappeared, percolating underneath it
to its destination, (wherever that might be).

But an exclamation from Ace caused him to look in the direction of his
pointing arm. In the canyon below them a bon-fire burst into bloom. "The
folks?" cried Ace joyously.

"Maybe the Mexicans," Ted restrained him.

"Let's slip up on them and find out," urged the other. "Thunder! Wouldn't
it be great if it was our bunch?"

"All the same, we gotta act just as if it was the Mexicans, till we know
for sure."

"They've sure got a good fire," Ace shivered. "Let's hurry."

"All right, maybe it's Radcliffe come clear through the cave on a higher
level, and maybe he'