Meanwhile John stepped ahead with Barboux and the Indians. His spirits rose as he climbed above the forest; the shadow which had lain on them slipped away and melted in the clear air. Here and there he stumbled, his knees reminding him suddenly of his weakness; but health was coming back to him, and he drank in long pure draughts of it. It was good, after all, to be alive and young. A sudden throbbing in the air brought him to a halt; it came from a tiny humming-bird poising itself over a bush-tufted rock on his right. As it sang on, careless of his presence, John watched the music bubbling and trembling within its flame-coloured throat. He, too, felt ready to sing for no other reason than pure delight. He understood the ancient gods and their laughter; he smiled down with them upon the fret of the world and mortal fate. Father Jove, _optimus maximus_, was a grand fellow, a good Catholic in spite of misconception, and certainly immortal; god and gentleman both, large, lusty, superlative, tolerant, debonair. As for misconception, from this height Father Jove could overlook centuries of it at ease--the Middle Ages, for instance. Everyone had been more or less cracked in the Middle Ages--cracked as fiddles. Likely enough Jove had made the Middle Ages, to amuse himself. . . . As the climb lulled his brain, John played with these idle fancies. Barboux, being out of condition and scant of breath, conversed very little. The Indians kept silence as usual. The sun was dropping behind the cleft of the pass as they reached it, and the rocky walls opened in the haze of its yellow beams. So once more John came to the gate of a new world. Menehwehna led, Barboux followed, with John close behind, and Muskingon bringing up the rear. They were treading the actual pass, and Menehwehna, rounding an angle of the cliff, had been lost to sight for a moment, when John heard a low guttural cry--whether of surprise or warning he could not tell. He ran forward at Barboux's heels. A dozen paces ahead of the Indian, reclining against the rock-face on a heap of _scree_, in the very issue of the pass, with leagues of sunlight beyond him and the basin of the plain at his feet, sat a man. He did not move; and at first this puzzled them, for he lay dark against the sun, and its rays shone in their eyes. But Menehwehna stepped close up to him and pointed. Then they saw, and understood. The man was dead; dead and scalped--a horrible sight. CHAPTER VIII. THE FARTHER SLOPE. Barboux's complexion had turned to a sick yellow beneath its mottles. He had been walking hard, and had eaten too much throughout the voyage; no doubt, too, the sunset light painted his colour deeper. But the man fairly twittered. Menehwehna muttered an Indian name. "Eh? Speak low, for the love of God!" The sergeant swept the cliffs above and around with a shuddering glance.