the haze that hangs over the valley might even hide a large city from us. We shall have to go down into the valley to find out."

"I can scarcely wait," exclaimed Duare.

The trail on which we had approached the edge of the escarpment turned sharply to the left and skirted the brink, but from it a smaller trail branched and dropped over the edge.

This trail was little better than a faintly marked foot path, and it zigzagged down the almost vertical face of the escarpment in a manner calculated to send the cold chills up one's back if he happened to be affected by such things.

"Few creatures go up and down here," remarked Duare, as she looked over the edge of the escarpment at the dizzy trail.

"Perhaps we had better go on farther; there may be an easier way down," I suggested, thinking that she might be fearful.

"No," she demurred. "I wanted to get out of the forest, and here is my chance. Something has gone up and down here; and if something else has, we can."

"Take my hand, then; it is very steep."

She did as I bid, and I also handed her my spear to use as a staff. Thus we started the perilous descent. Even now I hate to recall it. It was not only fraught with danger but it was exceedingly exhausting. A dozen times I thought that we were doomed; seemingly it was impossible to descend farther, and certainly it would have been impossible to retrace our steps to the summit, for there had been places where we had lowered ourselves over ledges that we could not have again scaled.

Duare was very brave. She amazed me. Not only was her courage remarkable, but her endurance was almost unbelievable in one so delicately moulded. And she kept cheerful and good-natured. Often she laughed when she would slip and almost fall, where a fall meant death.

"I said," she recalled, once while we were resting, "that something must have come up and down this trail. Now I wonder what manner of creature it may be."

"Perhaps it is a mountain goat," I suggested. "I can think of nothing else that might do it."

She did not know what a mountain goat was, and I knew of no Venusan animal with which to compare it. She thought that a mistal might easily go up and down such a trail. I had never heard of this 

 Prev. P 52/163 next