Searching for an exit, Jack was not long in finding one. The pool was drained by a narrow crevice in the rocky walls, forming a passage. On the brink of the water was a strip of beach, not much wider than a man’s hand. Beside this pathway the water roared and screamed in its narrow bounds, but Jack knew that if he was to get out of this place at all he must dare the rocky passage. Stifling his fears as well as he could, the famished, bedraggled lad struck pluckily out. Sometimes the passage grew so narrow that he could have bestridden the stream. At other points it widened out and, looking up, Jack could see the blue sky far overhead. In reality the passage was not more than half a mile in length but, so carefully did Jack have to proceed, it appeared to be four times that length at least. The passage ended with almost startling abruptness. Jack could hardly repress an exclamation of amazement as he saw upon what a strange scene it opened. Beyond its mouth lay a broad valley, carpeted with vivid green grass and dotted here and there, like a park, with groups of trees. Viewed in the sparkling sunlight it was indeed a scene of rare beauty and Jack’s heart gave a throb of delight as he beheld it. “Surely,” he thought, “some rancher must live hereabouts who will give me food and lend me a horse to ride back to San Mercedes.” For the first few minutes following his discovery of the valley the boy did not doubt but that he should find an easy and speedy means of escaping from his difficulties. But it gradually began to dawn upon him that the place upon which he had so oddly blundered was not inhabited at all. At least, he could see no sign of a human habitation. Then, too, somewhat to his dismay, he noticed another feature of the valley which had at first escaped his attention altogether. The place was completely enclosed by steep, lofty cliffs, and appeared as if, at some early period of the world’s growth, it had been dropped below the level of the surrounding country by some mighty convulsion of nature. For the rest the valley appeared to be about a mile in length and half a mile wide at its broadest part. Through the center of it the stream that issued from the passage beyond the Pool of Death meandered leisurely along. “Well,” exclaimed Jack, to himself, gazing somewhat disconsolately about him, “this is a beautiful spot into which I have wandered; but somehow it doesn’t appear to solve my difficulties. In the first place, I don’t believe it is frequented by human beings, and in the second, so far as I can see, there is no way out of it. I wonder where on earth I can be? Certainly not on the Rio Grande itself. I begin to suspect that that current hurled the raft off into some side stream which terminated in the falls.”