"Yet," said de Spain finally, "before morning we must be a long way from this particular spot, Nan. Lefever is down there--I haven't the slightest doubt of that. Sassoon has posted men at the neck of the Gap--that's the first thing he would do. And if John heard my rifle when I first shot, he would be for breaking in here, and his men, if they've come up, would bump into Sassoon's. It would be insane for us to try to get out over the trail with Sassoon holding it against Lefever--we might easily be hit by our friends instead of our enemies. I'll tell you what, Nan, suppose I scout down that way alone and see what I can find out?" He put the proposal very lightly, realizing almost as soon as he made it what her answer would be. "Better we go together," she answered in the steady tone he loved to hear. "If you were killed, what would become of me? I should rather be shot than fall into his hands after this--if there was ever a chance for it before, there'd be no mercy now. Let's go together." He would not consent, and she knew he was right. But what was right for one was right, she told him, for both, and what was wrong for one was wrong for both. "Then, I'll tell you," he said suddenly, as when after long uncertainty and anxious doubt one chooses an alternative and hastens to follow it. "Retreat is the thing for us, Nan. Let's make for Music Mountain and crawl into our cave till morning. Lefever will get in here some time to-morrow. Then we can connect with him." They discussed the move a little further, but there seemed no escape from the necessity of it, despite the hardship involved in reaching the refuge; and, realizing that no time was to be lost, they set out on the long journey. Every foot of the troublesome way offered difficulties. Water impeded them continually. It lay in shallow pools underfoot and slipped in running sheets over the sloping rocks that lay in their obscure path. Sometimes de Spain led, sometimes Nan picked their trail. But for her perfect familiarity with every foot of the ground they could not have got to the mountain at all. Even before they succeeded in reaching the foot of it their ears warned them of a more serious obstacle ahead. When they got to the mountain trail itself they heard the roar of the stream that made the waterfall above the ledge they were trying to reach. Climbing hardly a dozen steps, they found their way swept by a mad rush of falling water, its deafening roar punctured by fragments of loosened rock which, swept downward from ledge to ledge, split and thundered as they dashed themselves against the mountainside. On a protected floor the two stood for a moment, listening to the roar of the cataract that had cut them off their refuge. "No use, Nan," said de Spain. "There isn't any other trail, is there?"