“Well, I’ll tell you,” replied the curator, heading on steadily through the thickets just below the base of the volcanic talus. “It’s a bit of psychology that I’ve been working out. In the first place the pygmies, I’m sure, think as you all thought. They judged by our actions that we were beaten and would think of nothing but hurrying back to the sea again. They will make forced marches, to-night, to head us off, I’ll bet! And then we must reckon on the human nature of our own folks, too. ‘Seeing is believing’ is one of the truest old sayings there are. In other words, we’ve simply _got_ to bring back some real specimens of that cinnabar and be able to swear where we got it. No financier that I know will back a company to open up mines on the mere say-so of a red mountain seen eight miles off. I know red mercury ore strata as far as I can see it--but I _might_ be mistaken. Suppose it should turn out to be just red clay, or red iron ore!” “Gosh, sir! you’re right!” put in Nicky. “I sort of felt that way myself, but I suppose I did not feel it hard enough to really do a stunt like this!” “Sure!” smiled the curator. “It’s the difference between a youth and a man, Nick. The youth gets the vague feeling, but he’s as like as not to do nothing about it; the man reasons until he is convinced by the force of logic--then he acts. Now I was studying the wall of the Great Precipice when we were on the brink doing the rope fire-escape trick, with just this idea in mind. There are gaps in this precipice all along it, where the rivers tumble down from the hill country to the low jungle on their way to the sea. I marked one, some distance beyond that first signal fire to the south. It can’t be more than five miles from there in to Cinnabar Mountain, and the gap’s about five miles from here. Can we do ten miles to-night? That’s the question.” “How about getting past that village?” asked Dwight. “That’s the nice thing about my scheme,” laughed the curator. “I figure that all their fighting men have gone north, long ago, to aid the men of our village in repelling invaders. Those signal fires are evidently used to call the clans when war parties of the Outanatas attack them. The women and children, and perhaps a few old men, will be all that we are likely to encounter, and we ought to slip by them successfully in the night.” “Won’t they come down our rope and track us, sir?” said Nicky. “I’ve been worrying about that, although no one tried it while I was on that slope.”