It is not a path for the city bred to essay, save with the ready arm of a guide.

But the hill-trained muscles and nerves of Sibyl Andres gloried in the task.

The cool-headed, mountain girl enjoyed the climb from which her city sisters would have drawn back in trembling fear.
Once, at a point perhaps two-thirds of the height to the top, she halted.
Her ear had caught a slight noise above her head, as a few pebbles rolled down the almost perpendicular face of the wall and bounded from the trail where she stood, into the depths below.

For a few minutes, the girl, on the little, shelf-like path that was scarcely wider than the span of her two hands, was as motionless and as silent as the cliff itself; while, with her face turned upward, she searched with keen eyes the rim of the gorge; her free, right hand resting upon the butt of the revolver at her hip.

Then she went on--not timidly, but neither carelessly; not in the least frightened, but still,--knowing that the spot was far from the more frequented paths,--with experienced care.
As her head and shoulders came above the rim, she paused again, to search with careful eyes the vicinity of the trail that from this point leads for a little way down the knife-like ridge of the spur, and then, by easier stages, around the shoulder and the flank of the mountain, to Burnt Pine Camp.