When the first realization burst upon Sid that he was a prisoner in Lost Canyon, his first reaction was a rebellious No! The thing was preposterous--there _must_ be a way out! The cougar’s route, for one thing. With that idea in mind, Sid decided on a return to his cave lair on the pueblo ledge. He had a shivery repugnance for the haunted cliff dwelling, now, since he knew that he would very likely have to spend the night in the same valley with this abode of departed spirits. But Sid tossed aside such thoughts, for the present, and worked his way resolutely up to the cliff dwellers’ village again. The cougar’s trail leading out of his cave was well marked--as far as the edge of the ledge. From there his immense strength and activity, and his sharp, hooked claws made possible for him any number of different routes along the cliff wall. There were claw marks, here and there, plainly to be seen, places that the boy couldn’t think of reaching. No creature without hooked claws could remain there for a minute! Sid marked a number of these spots and worked out a more or less nebulous route by them along the cliff walls. Going below, he could pick these up, he thought, and follow them up the canyon so as to locate the spot where the cougar came down the cliff. With this idea he descended again and stumbled hurriedly down the rock valley, searching the ledges above with his eyes. He could just discern the faint spoor marks, where certain small shrubs had been bent over, or certain patches of loose, rocky soil dislodged. They all trended north, toward the head of the canyon. And there lay his fate! That vast, smooth slope, of utterly bare rock slanted up from the upper ledges to the top, here. It was smooth, of weathered gray granite, and it was so steep that no man without a rope to hang on to could attempt to climb it. A thin fissure, with tufts of weeds growing invitingly out of it, crossed it diagonally. A man _might_ ascend, with that precarious foothold,--but it was utterly inaccessible from below. The great cat had negotiated it with ease, however, his steel-hook claws gripping the granite without probably giving it so much as a thought. Over it, up and down, he had come, carrying his prey in his teeth, as patches of hair and dried blood on the granite showed. The route was as easy to him as to a cat going up a tree; to a man it was quite as impossible.