The ascent was gradual at first, then steep and abrupt for a matter of fifty or sixty feet to the bald summit of the hill. Once at the top, he sat down panting and exhausted upon the edge of the shallow fissure he had followed as a path up the rock, and again his thoughts went back to the night of the murder. This had been David Windom's route to the top of the hill. He found himself discrediting one feature at least of the man's confession. Only a fabled giant could have carried the body of a man up that steep, tortuous incline. Why, he was exhausted, and he had borne no heavier burden than his stout walking-stick. That part of Windom's story certainly was "fishy." Presently he arose and strode out upon the rough, uneven "roof" of the height. He could look in all directions over the tops of the trees below. The sun beat down fiercely upon the unsheltered rock. Off to the north lay the pall of smoke indicating the presence of the invisible county seat. Thin, anfractuous highways and dirt roads scarred the green and brown landscape, and as far as the eye could reach were to be seen farmhouses and barns and silos. Avoiding the significant heap of rocks near the centre of the little plateau, he made his way to the brink of the cliff overlooking the river. There he had a wonderful view of the winding stream, the harvest fields, the groves, and the herds in the far-reaching stretches of what was considered the greatest corn raising "belt" in the United States. Some yards back from the edge of the cliff he discovered the now thoroughly rotted section of a tree trunk, eight or ten inches in diameter, driven deeply into a narrow fissure and rendered absolutely immovable by a solid mass of stones and gravel that completely closed the remainder of the crevice. He was right in surmising that this was the support from which Quill's rope or vine ladder was suspended a hundred years ago. Nearby were two heavy iron rings attached to standards sunk firmly into the rock, a modern improvement on the hermit's crude device. (He afterwards learned that David Windom, when a lad of fifteen, had drilled the holes in the rock and imbedded the stout iron shafts, so that he might safely descend to the mouth of the cave.) Turning back, he approached the heap of boulders that covered the grave of Edward and Alix Crown. No visible sign of the cleft in the surface of the rock remained. Six huge boulders, arranged in a row, rose above a carefully made bed of stones held in place by a low, soundly mortared wall. Chiselled on one of the end boulders was the name of Alix Windom Crown, with the date of her birth and her death, with the line: "Rock of Ages Cleft for Me." Below this inscription was the recently carved name of Edward Joseph Crown, Born July 7, 1871. Died March 22, 1895. Three words followed this. They were "Abide With Me." II