For the first half-hour of their climb down into the valley of the scratch, the three friends were too preoccupied with their own safety to talk more than an occasional sentence. They came upon many places that at first glance appeared impassable, or at least sufficiently hazardous to cause them to hesitate, but in each instance the changing contour of the precipice offered some other means of descent. After thirty minutes of arduous effort, the Big Business Man sat down suddenly upon a rock and began to unlace his shoes. "I've got to rest a while," he groaned. "My feet are in terrible shape." His two companions were glad of the opportunity to sit with him for a moment. "Gosh, I'm all in, too!" said the Very Young Man with a sigh. They were sitting upon a ledge about twenty feet wide, with the wall down which they had come at their back. "I'll swear that's as far down there as it ever was," said the Big Business Man, with a wave of his hand towards the valley below them. "Further," remarked the Very Young Man. "I've known that right along." "That's to be expected," said the Doctor. "But we're a third the way down, just the same; that's the main thing." He glanced up the rocky, precipitous wall behind them. "We've come down a thousand feet, at least. The valley must be three thousand feet deep or more now." "Say, how deep does it get before it stops?" inquired the Very Young Man. The Doctor smiled at him quietly. "Rogers's note put it about twelve thousand," he answered. "It should reach that depth and stop about"—he hesitated a moment, calculating—"about two o'clock," he finished. "Some climb," commented the Very Young Man. "We could do this a lot better than we're doing it, I think." For some time they sat in silence. From where they sat the valley had all the appearance of a rocky, barren cañon of their own world above, as it might have looked on the late afternoon of a cloudless summer day. A gentle breeze was blowing, and in the sky overhead they could still see the huge light that for them was the sun. "The weather is certainly great down here anyway," observed the Very Young Man, "that's one consolation." The Big Business Man had replaced his shoes, taken a swallow of water, and risen to his feet, preparing to start downward again, when suddenly they all noticed a curious swaying motion, as though the earth were moving under them. Contents     62      63      64      65     66      67      68