Bill and Abington came to and entered a narrow, straight-walled gorge. It had a loose, sandy bottom and every indication that ages before it had been a watercourse with the floods of glacial rainfall sluicing down to the valley. Presently Bill, plowing laboriously ahead to a certain spring he remembered in a cave up this ravine, gave a grunt and stopped short. In the peculiar, amethystine veil of the afterglow which lay upon the hills like a cunning stage effect of, colored lights, he pointed a finger stiffly to a certain mark in the sand. Abington limped forward and joined him. “I see the gosh-awful is here ahead of us,” he said listlessly. “Well, it will be obliged to wreck us personally this time, Bill, since all our worldly goods are literally on our backs. We may get a sight of it at last.” “That all you care?” Bill stared at him. “Maybe I’d feel that way about it, too, if I had a gun to defend myself with. You’re making a big mistake, professor. You’ll see it before you’re through.” “Possibly.” Abington’s tone was skeptical. “How far is it to the spring?” Bill did not reply. He was still staring at the strange tracks that were too large for any sheep one could imagine, yet not shaped like cattle tracks, nor much resembling the elk they had discussed last night. Blurred though they were in the fine sand, they were yet easily distinguishable to being the same hoof prints they had seen across the valley. The tracks did not look very fresh, and after a brief study of them Abington took the lead, perhaps because he was armed and Bill was not. Presently Abington stopped and pointed to a cleft in the rocks. “Whatever it is, it turned out of the gorge and went up there,” he said. “Pretty good climbing, even for a sheep.” “I’ll go ahead and show you the spring,” Bill volunteered and Abington chuckled to himself. Bill looked back at him with sullen eyes. “All right for you, professor--with two guns handy,” he said resentfully. “Put you in here with just your bare hands and maybe you wouldn’t be so damn nervy, yourself.” “I’d probably wait until I saw some danger before I became alarmed.” Bill muttered something under his breath, and stepped out more briskly. Both were thirsty, but since they had left the western side of the valley with one canteen nearly full, the need of water had not yet become acute. It was the tramp across the valley with packs too heavy for them that had told on the tempers of the two men--with Abington’s bruised foot and Bill’s nervous dread of pursuit for good measure. The spring proved to be well protected, in a water-worn cave that seemed to offer excellent shelter. A tangle of nondescript oak bushes grew near the entrance and drew moisture from the overflow which, though slight, was yet sufficient for the scant vegetation.