"All the previous day we had been slowly approaching a great white mesa toward which, without special reason, I had directed our course. Now we were close beside it, and I conceived the idea that at its base we might find some shaded crevice in which to lay our dead boy. At any rate, I could better bear to leave him there than out on the pitiless desert. So with mother's aid and that of Hagar, I finally succeeded in bearing him to the place I desired. We found a deep cool recess in the rocky wall, and there laying him down, rested for a while before undertaking to complete our sad task. "We were in so pitiable a plight from weakness and our recent exertions that the woman Hagar seemed to have lapsed into unconsciousness, and allowed her child to wander unnoticed from her side. All at once there came from him a shrill cry, accompanied by a muffled crash from the inner end of the recess, to which he had penetrated. Hagar sprang to her feet and sped toward the sound, while I followed close after. We found the little one lying unharmed at the foot of a rocky slope, while just beyond, as though it had leaped over him, lay a bowlder apparently newly fallen from above. "Glancing up in the direction from which it must have come, I was amazed to perceive a ray of light shining from beyond the barrier. Cautiously making my way up the slope, I discovered the light to shine through a small opening caused by the displacement of the bowlder already mentioned. Looking through this as through a window, I beheld a sight so marvellous that for a time I could not believe in its reality. I need not attempt to describe it to thee, Todd Chalmers, for thee is already familiar with the aspect of the Valley of Peace, and can judge of my feelings at coming thus unexpectedly upon it. "Soon after we discovered a ruined hut of stone that told of former human occupancy of the valley, and, as it stood near a stream, we lighted our fire close beside it. Taking Hagar with me, and again visiting the wagon, we brought back a number of things most needful for immediate use. Among them was a fowling-piece, which was the only firearm that I possessed. With this I fired at and killed a rabbit that regarded us from a short distance without the least trace of fear. The effect of that shot was prodigious. It roared and echoed among the cliffs like a thousand thunders, and caused the appearance of such an amount of animal life as satisfied me that we were in no danger of starving so long as we should remain in the valley. "After a supper of stewed rabbit, thin cakes of cornmeal that Hagar deftly baked on the heated surface of a flat stone, and tea, the Indian woman and I made one more trip to the wagon, from which we brought in all our bedding. Then, after collecting a sufficient supply of firewood to last until morning, we sought our rude couches, and prepared to pass our first night in the wonderful place to which we had been so strangely led.