THE WINDOW OF THE SPHINX
and spent the afternoon investigating the chance for an inlet there. Nothing was possible, the hills becoming a high rampart of shard, their bases steep slides of stone. Furthermore, Carron was not prepared to risk the utmost here. It was too distant altogether from Raders to seem a likely place, and to his knowledgeable eye, it was subtlely unlike the creature he was seeking. They returned to the town at dusk. He had no thought of starting for Raders that night. He wished that he might have found some one bound in that direction who could have carried a note; but he was too full of calculations of moonrise, of trails and possibilities of rock formations to reflect long on what the Raders might think.
Through all the night he was wakeful and his mind at work. To go back to the place, twenty-five miles below, where the road turned aside from the cañon, to make his way without a trail, up the difficult Highway of the Gods, through the gates, into the circle of mountains which was the Big Cañon, would be in itself a full day's work. And, once entering it, what then? In it he could not see it. He might waste days, lost among peak and declivity. It would be like entering a maze. But, from this side of the cañon wall, to ascend to the Sphinx's window and look through it, would be looking upon the maze from a balloon. From this
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