“There isn’t any use of staying here,” he exclaimed, desperately, “unless I want to lie down and die, and I ain’t quite ready for that yet.  It is pretty sure the ravine ain’t straight ahead, so it must be more to one side.”

And, acting upon this conclusion, he made quite a change in the direction he was pursuing, moving off to the left, and encouraging himself with the fact that the pass must be somewhere, and he had only to persevere in exploring each point of the compass to reach it at last.  His route continued as precipitous and difficult as before, and it was not long before the plague of thirst became greater than that of hunger.  But he persevered, hopeful that his wearisome wandering would soon end.

“Halloa!  Here I am again.”

This exclamation was caused by the sudden arrival upon the edge of a ravine, which, on first thought, he supposed to be the very one for which he was making.  But a second glance convinced him of his error, for it was nothing more than a yawn, or chasm, that had probably been opened in the mountains by some great convulsion of nature.

Making his way carefully to the edge, Fred saw that it had a varying depth of fifty to two hundred feet, and a width from a dozen yards to three times as much, its length seemingly too great to be “gone round” by an ordinary traveler.  And yet, finding himself confronted by such a chasm, it was perhaps natural that the lad should become more fully pursuaded than ever of the absolute necessity of placing himself upon the opposite side.  The more he thought upon it the more convinced did he become, until his disire of passing over became a wild sort of eagerness that would not let him rest.

“I don’t believe the pass is more than a hundred yards from the other side, and the two must run nearly parallel, so I am bound to get over in some way.”

In the hope that some narrow portion might be found, he made his way with great care along the margin, until fully an hour had been spent in this manner, with a result that could not be called very satisfactory.

“If I could jump about three times as far as I can, I could go across right yonder—­helloa! why did n’t I notice that before?”

And the words were yet in his mouth, when he started on a run along the margin of the ravine, at the imminent risk of falling in and breaking his neck.  He had espied not only a narrower portion of the ravine, but what seemed to be a fallen tree extending from one side to the other.

If such were really the case, what more could he need?  He had thought over this matter of the pass being upon the other side, until no doubt at all remained in his mind, and now the discovery that the chasm was bridged caused the strongest rebound from discouragement to hope.

Upon reaching the bridge, he found that it answered his purpose admirably.  The width was less than ten yards, although the depth was enough to make him shudder, when he peered down into it.