“Hello!” he said in a hoarse croak.  “How did we land here?”

“I led us here sometime in past ages.  When or how, quien sabe?” answered Rhoda.  “John, we must find food somehow.”

“Drink all the water you can, Rhoda.” said DeWitt; “it helps some, and I’ll pot a rabbit.  What a fool I am.  You poor girl!  More hardships for you!”

Rhoda dipped her burning face into the water, then lifted it, dripping.

“If only you won’t be delirious, John, I can stand the hardships.”

DeWitt looked at the girl curiously.

“Was I delirious?  And you were alone, leading me across that Hades out there?  Rhoda dear, you make me ashamed of myself!”

“I don’t see how you were to blame,” answered Rhoda stoutly.  “Think what you have been doing for me!”

John rose stiffly.

“Do you feel equal to climbing this trail with me, to find where we are, or had you rather stay here?”

“I don’t want to stay here alone,” answered Rhoda.

Very slowly and weakly they started up the trail.  The spring was on a broad stone terrace.  Above it rose another terrace weathered and disrupted until in the moonlight it looked like an impregnable castle wall, embattled and embuttressed.  But clinging to the seemingly invulnerable fortress was the trail, a snake-like shadow in the moonlight.

“Perhaps we had better stay at the spring until morning,” suggested Rhoda, her weak legs flagging.

“Not with the hope of shelter a hundred feet above us,” answered John firmly.  “This trail is worn six inches into the solid rock.  My guess is that there are some inhabitants here.  It’s queer that they haven’t discovered us.”

Slowly and without further protest, Rhoda followed DeWitt up the trail.  Deep-worn and smooth though it was, they accomplished their task with infinite difficulty.  Rhoda, stumbling like a sleep-sodden child, wondered if ever again she was to accomplish physical feats with the magical ease with which Kut-le had endowed her.

“If he were here, I’d know I was to tumble into a comfortable camp,” she thought.  Then with a remorseful glance at DeWitt’s patient back, “What a selfish beast you are, Rhoda Tuttle!”

She reached John’s side and together they paused at the top of the trail.  Black against the sky, the moon crowning its top with a frost-like radiance, was a huge flat-topped building.  Night birds circled about it.  From black openings in its front owls hooted.  But otherwise there was neither sight nor sound of living thing.  The desert far below and beyond lay like a sea of death.  Rhoda unconsciously drew nearer to DeWitt.

“Where are the dogs?  At Chira the dogs barked all night.  Indians always have dogs!”

“It must be very late,” whispered DeWitt.  “Even the dogs are asleep!”

“And at Chira,” went on Rhoda, whispering as did DeWitt, “owls didn’t hoot from the windows.”