THEY will say, down yonder," Almayne remarked thoughtfully, "that the Thunder God is sleeping on his sacred mountain and that he has drawn his white buffalo robe over him so that the sun may not shine upon his face."
He sat, with Jolie Stanwicke and Lachlan McDonald, upon the brow of a great precipice of rock. How high that precipice was Jolie could only guess, for below them a white blanket of mist shut the world from her view. She knew only that they were on the summit of a lofty mountain whichf Almayne called Sani'gilagi, and that the dangers that had encompassed them were past.
They had ridden, without pause or rest, all of the previous day and all of that night. Before the darkness came upon them the hills had changed to mountains. At sunset, to Almayne's and Lachlan's great joy, a rain had set in, and for hours they had ridden on through a drenching downpour, while thunder rolled and crashed around them and vivid flashes of lightning lit the forest. A cape of some thin leatherlike material, which Lachlan had carried under his saddle, kept Jolie dry. Save when the lightning flashed, the blackness was impenetrable; yet Almayne had
