Alchise, with rifle cocked, stopped by the opening. The fissure
widened immediately into a narrow passageway. High, high above them
rolled a strip of pink and blue morning sky. Before them was a
seemingly interminable crevice along which the squaws scuttled. As
Rhoda watched them they disappeared around a sudden curve. When Kut-le
reached this point with his burden, the squaws were climbing like
monkeys up the wall which here gave back, roughly, ending the fissure
in a rude chimney which it seemed to Rhoda only a bear or an Apache
could have climbed. Kut-le set Rhoda on her feet. She looked up into
his face mockingly. To her mind she was as good as rescued. But the
young Apache seemed in no wise hurried or excited.

"Our old friends seem to want something!" he commented with his boyish
grin.

"What are you going to do now?" asked Rhoda, with calm equal to the
Apache's.

"I can't carry you up this wall," suggested Kut-le.

"Very well!" returned Rhoda pleasantly. "I am quite willing that you
should leave me here."

Kut-le's eyes glittered.

"Rhoda, you must climb this wall with me!"

"I won't!" replied Rhoda laconically.