It was growing late when Sid finally came to the conclusion that impossible was the answer, so far as he was concerned. He spent an hour more in walking up and down the ravine, studying the cliff rim for some possible crevice or chimney up which he could climb by the aid of a manufactured rope. This, too, was hopeless, without at least a hundred feet of lariat--things were done on too huge a scale, here, to be at all complaisant with puny man and his inventions! To return to the high cleft in the wall that blocked Lost Canyon suggested itself. Sid could see nothing in that to allure! At the best he could only reach the ledge at the bottom of “Fat Man’s Misery,” there to sit and look below. His own people were not due in the Canyon until to-morrow; even then it would be a mere chance that could decide them to come up this side canyon which he had explored. He recollected some talk about their striking the canyon from its upper end,--seven miles away from him! With his small .32-20 revolver there was hardly a chance that they would hear him,--even if he sat on the ledge all next day and fired signals. Sid decided that his present duty was to make himself comfortable for the night. Usually this was a most delectable occupation. Never in his life had Sid known fear of the forest. One thing which had always brought a disrespectful grin to his face on being urged to read the great poets had been their very evident distaste for a forest--at night. Even in the daytime they peopled it with fairies, dryads, monsters, witches--at the very least with wild beasts and all the terrors of the unknown and unseen. Not one of them, Sid felt, could have been left out all night in the forest without a feeling of uneasiness, without at least a stoppage of the Muse and an ardent desire for a return to the comforts and security of civilization! But to Sid the trees, the rocks, the birds, the forest animals all formed one vast brotherhood with him; it was always with a feeling of utter peace and security that he allowed himself to sink into the unconsciousness of sleep, confident of a joyous reawakening when dawn should steal through the forest aisles again and all its wild brotherhood burst into life and song.