The Last Tablet Adrift on Lost River The Message [1] THE VALLEY OF ARCANA CHAPTER I AN EXTRA BED TRIED outlanders though they were, Dr. Inman Shonto and Andy Jerome were hopelessly lost. Afoot, horseback, and by motor car the pair had covered thousands of square miles of desert and forest land in Southern California. But it was different up here in the mountainous region of the northern part of the state, where they found themselves surrounded by heavy timber vaster than they had dreamed could have been left standing by the ensanguined hand of the lumberman. And, besides, thin fingers of fog were reaching in from the sea, about eighteen miles to the west of them. For hours they had been following wooded ridges, which here and there offered a view of the seemingly illimitable sweep of redwood forests below them. Spruce, fir, several varieties of oak, and madrones crowned these ridges—trees of a height and girth that they could understand. But down below them towered the monarchs of the vegetable kingdom, straight as the path of righteousness, solemn, aloof—impossible trees—whose height would bring their tops on a level with the clock of the Metropolitan Building, whose[2] boles occupied a space greater than a good-sized living room. [2] They awed the southerners immeasurably, for this was their first trip into the northern part of their state. They were silent as they hurried on, sliding down steep slopes, clambering up rocky, timbered inclines, always hoping for some familiar object that would show them they were on the campward trail. Each carried a .25-.35 rifle, for they had left camp early that morning to hunt deer—and both had entertained fond hopes that a wandering bear or a panther might cross their path. The doctor had wounded a big six-pointer close to noon, and following the bloody trail which the cripple left had led the pair astray. Now night
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