Lime Rock upreared itself on the lip of a thousand-foot precipice that overhung the river. It was three hundred feet in height, a gigantic white pencil pointing toward the sky. At its base was a small level space, large enough for a wagon and team to turn, but the remainder of the land about and above it was hillside, too steep for cows to climb. And from the edge of the level land the cañonside dropped straight downward, a mass of craggy rocks and ill-nourished growth. The trail that led to Lime Rock wound its way over a shelf four feet in width, hacked in the hillside. One false step on this trail and details of what must inevitably ensue would be hideous. Oliver led the way when they reached the beginning of the trail. Both Poche and White Ann were mountain bred animals, sure-footed and unconcerned over Nature's threatening eccentricities. For a quarter of a mile the bay and the white threaded the narrow path, their riders silent. Then they came to Lime Rock and the security of the level land about it. Here Oliver and Jessamy sat their horses and gazed down the dizzy precipice at the rushing river, and up the steep, rocky wall on the other side. "Do you know who owns the land on which our horses are standing?" Jessamy finally asked. "I've never given it a thought," said Oliver. "It belongs to Damon Tamroy." "That so? I didn't know he owned anything over this way." "Yes, Damon owns it. But I have an option on it." "You! Have an option on it!" "Yes, a year's option. It was rather an underhanded trick that I played on old Damon, but he's not very angry about it. It's my first business venture. "You see, I learned through a letter from a girl friend in San Francisco that a big cement company was thinking of invading this country. She wrote it merely as a bit of entertaining news, but I looked at it differently. "I knew where they'd begin their invasion. Right here! That magnificent monument there is solid limestone, and the hills back of it are the same, though covered by a thin layer of soil. So I went to the owner of the land, Damon Tamroy, and got a year's option on it for twenty-five dollars--a hundred and sixty acres. "How Damon laughed at me! I told him outright why I wanted to buy the land, if ever I could scrape enough together. He didn't consider it very valuable, and it may become mine any day this year that I can pungle up four hundred and seventy-five bucks more. When he quizzed me, I told him frankly that I was doing it in an effort to preserve Lime Rock for posterity, and he laughed louder than ever. "But he changed his tune when a representative of the cement company approached him with an offer of fifteen dollars an acre. He took his loss good-naturedly enough, but accused me of putting over a slick little business deal on him. I had done so, in a way, and admitted it; and ever since I've been talking myself blue in the face when I meet him, trying to convince him that it's not the money I'm after at all.