All this tended to confuse their knowledge of the points of the compass, but they did not forget to note everything that could serve as a guide, and were confident of finding their way whenever it should become necessary to return.
Most of the time Jack Dudley was in the lead, for it was not easy to walk beside each other.

He was perhaps a half-dozen paces in advance of Fred, when he abruptly stopped with an exclamation of affright.
"What is it ?" asked his friend, hardly less startled.
"Look at that!" He pointed downward, almost at his feet.

Still unaware of what he meant, Fred stepped guardedly forward to his side.
There was good cause, indeed, for the alarm of the elder, for he had checked himself on the edge of a ravine or canyon fully a thousand feet deep.

One step further and he would have dropped into eternity.
The peculiar formation of the canyon accounted for this peril.

The chasm was barely a dozen feet wide, but the other side was depressed, so that it was not noticed by the youth until on the edge of the danger.