"Rios is hard set in his belief that there's ancient treasure nearby. So is Barlow. So, evidently, was Escobar. If so, what more likely place than where we are? That hole didn't make itself after that regular fashion. I don't see just what it has to do with the case, I'll admit. But somebody made it a long time ago and didn't do it just for the fun of the job. I've a notion that it has its bearing on the thing. Somehow." "It isn't big enough to hold much treasure," said Betty. "Maybe they didn't finish it?" But from this they went to other matters. Kendric merely decided that while they spent a long tomorrow of inaction he would look into the matter. There was no great temptation to tarry for treasure and the incentive to be on the way, traveling light, was sufficiently emphasized. But there was a quiet day to be put in tomorrow, if all went right, and he was not the man to forget what had brought him southward. "We'll both go to sleep," he said presently, "and not do any worrying about what the other fellow may be doing. With our fire out and a lot of dead limbs scattered about the entrance to crack under a man's foot, they'll not surprise us tonight, even if they should know where we are. Tomorrow we'll keep a watch over the ravine. And tomorrow night I hope we'll be on the trail toward the gulf. Now do you want to slip out with me for a goodnight drink of water? Or would you rather wait here for me?" Betty was on her feet in a flash. "I've done enough waiting today to last me the rest of my life!" she cried emphatically. "I'll go with you." So again, and as cautious as they had been last night, they made their way down the steep slope and drank in the starlight. They tarried a little by the trickle of water, heeding the silence, breathing deep of the soft night, lifting their eyes to the stars. The world seemed young and sweet about them, clean and tender, a place of infinite peace and kindness rather than of a pursuing hate. They stood close together; their shoulders brushed companionably. Together they hearkened to a tiny voice thrilling through the emptiness, the monotonous vibrating cadences of some happy insect. The heat of the day had passed with the day, the perfect hour had come. It was one of those moments which Jim Kendric found to his liking. Many such still hours had he known under many skies and out of the night had always come something vague and mighty to speak to something no less mighty which lay within his soul. But always before, when he drank the fill of a time like this, he had been alone. He had thought that a man must be alone to know the ineffable content of the solitudes. Tonight he was not alone. And yet more perfect than those other hours in other lands was this hour slipping by now as the tiny voice out yonder slipped through the silence without shattering it. Certain words of his own little song crept into his mind. "Where it's only you And the mountainside."