them and jumping into their canoe paddled them to where the end of
the rope-ladder dangled in the stream. He pointed upward for them
to ascend. But Billy's curiosity would not let him mount before he
had asked a question.

"Who are these people?" he asked in, for him, an awed tone.

"Very old-time people," rejoined their guide. "We hunt for them,
work for them. They the same as fetish."'

The boys mounted the ladder slowly.

Unused as they were to such a contrivance it required all their
nerve to keep on going up, as they swung at a higher and higher
altitude above the river. Neither of them dared to look down, as
they were certain that they would be overcome by dizziness.

With their eyes glued to the rock in front of them, they mounted
what seemed to be endless rungs till at last they found themselves
at the top of the ladder and facing a large opening cut in the rock.

As they found out later, this was the main entrance to the dwelling
of this strange community and from it various galleries and passages
branched off to their separate dwelling-places. Each family lived
in a rock house exactly adapted to the size of the circle. There
were six stories, so to speak, of these dwelling-places, but they
all communicated, either by means of stair-ways cut in the rock or
inclined galleries, with the main passage at the entrance of which
the chums now stood.