Finally a moist breeze drew between the boles and brought the noise of running water. Colonel pricked his ears sensitively. He swung, looking towards a line of thicket that marked the watercourse, then he broke into a trot. The sound became the thunder of a cataract. Alice leaned low in her saddle; her wide eyes tried to penetrate the jungle ahead. The black pushed on between boughs, snorting gently, tossing his mane. There was a flash of foam through the foliage, then, clear, cold, fresh from near snowfields, plunged the upper falls of the Des Chutes. Her foot was out of the stirrup; she slipped to the ground, and reaching the brink, threw herself full length, and stretching her palms down to the torrent, and bringing them up, cuplike, drank. She laved her face, and putting her hands together, dipped and drank from their hollow, again and again. There were two falls, and the ledge upon which she had thrown herself projected over the second plunge. It was narrow and thin, and trembled with the shock of the torrent and with her weight. When she lifted her eyes the spray of the upper cataract was in her face; looking down, she saw a great square room cut from solid basalt, which received the second fall and poured it, seething, through a fissure, set doorlike in the lower wall. She shrank back to her knees, overcome with sudden dizziness. The next instant she was drawn to her feet, then lifted off of them by a pair of unsteady arms, and put down on firm earth. She looked up and laughed. But Forrest’s face was white and stern. "Why will you risk yourself like this?" he said. "Why will you?" Camp was made in a small open on the base of the slope. Dry branches were gathered for the fire, a tent pitched for the women, and bedded with boughs made springy by sharpening and planting the butts in the earth. Then Martha set out her fine butter and light loaf, and lifted the coffee-pot from the improvised tripod, and brought venison steaks, broiled to perfection over the red coals. "I dunno," said Eben, putting down his cup and smoothing his long black whiskers, "I dunno’s I ever hed your ’pinion ’bout that ther leanin’ tower. How do you ’count fur it?" "Why," answered Forrest, "the blocks are of granite. There was probably a formation of granite and limestone, and the softer rock crumbled away." There was a brief silence, during which the settler meditated profoundly, then Martha spoke. "I ’low he’s ’bout right, Eben. Ther ain’t never be’n no man ’round here could a hefted them stones, let erlone piled ’em that erway, cantin’ right over ther gorge. An’ ef ther was, an’ he’d hed ther help an’ tackle, what in all creation ’d he do it fur?" Another profound silence, then Myers said, "I ’lowed it might a be’n done by my petrified man." "Your petrified man?" repeated Forrest.