“If we had waited for breakfast,” said Sidney, as the boys stood watching the mountaineer climb the switchback of the trail, “we should have been minus our blankets.”

“Gracious! It makes me shiver just to think of hiking over those mountains without any blankets.” And Raymond gazed off at the Caucasus, whose crests shone white in the clear morning air.

“And speaking of breakfast,” said Sidney, as he made his blanket and cloak into the usual roll for packing, “reminds me that I’ll be quite ready for it when we get down to the bottom.”

“I wish there was a good breakfast ready for us,” said Raymond, as they started down the mountain. “I’m tired to death of that everlasting dry bread.”

“Dry bread, you know, is more hygienic than fresh bread.”

“It may be hygienic, but it’s not high living. I just long for something really tasty, like quail or rabbit.”

“Well, there are rabbits here. I saw one this morning down in the caÑon. Do you think you could hit one with that revolver?”

“Of course I could hit one! What’s the matter with you?”

“Then I hope we’ll see another.”

The long night’s rest, after food and drink, had made the boys feel so fine that they already had little to remind them of their trying experience of the previous two days. They went down the mountain at a swinging gait, and as they approached the bottom, Raymond’s mind reverted with longing to the subject of rabbit.

“Sid,” he suggested, “if you’ll hang back a little I’ll go on ahead and maybe I’ll see a rabbit as we near the caÑon.”

“All right,” agreed Sidney. “You’d better give me your blankets; you don’t want to be bothered with them if you’re going to shoot.”

Raymond passed his blanket roll over to Sidney, who sat down on a rock to give his brother time to get ahead. The boy proceeded cautiously down the slope with his revolver held ready, but rabbits were, apparently, either very scarce or very shy, for none appeared. He stopped on the brink of the steeper descent just before the bottom, and after pausing to make an examination there, he turned and called out to Sidney in a disgusted tone,—

“No use, Sid; come on.”

The boys clambered down the rocks and trudged through the sand to their camping-place, Raymond grumbling as they went.

“Tough luck, I say, not to see hide or hair of a rabbit, hungry as we are.”

They reached the little ravine, and there, just inside the entrance, sat a big gray rabbit!

Raymond threw up his revolver, and bringing it down, fired as it came to a level. It was done in an instant, without apparent preparation, and yet there on the sand with the greater part of its head missing, lay the rabbit.

“You are certainly a crackerjack with the gun, Ray,” exclaimed Sidney admiringly. “If I had tried that I should have blown the rabbit all to pieces, or else missed him entirely.”

“It all depends on believing you’re going to hit. And don’t hesitate; fire as soon as you see your game through the sight.”

“But you don’t sight at all, you just fire regardless.”

Raymond laughed. “Well, I guess it’s instinct.”

While Raymond was dressing the game Sidney gathered an armful of bits of wood and brush, and carrying the fuel up into the little ravine, he built a fire in an angle where it could not be seen from the caÑon. He fed the blaze until, by the time Raymond had the rabbit cleaned and quartered, there was a thick bed of coals. Then the boys sharpened sticks and holding the pieces of meat over the coals roasted them beautifully.

The meal that followed, Raymond declared was fit to be served on Olympus. It would, perhaps, have been improved with a little salt, for the boys had forgotten to supply themselves with that desirable condiment. But the delicious roast meat was so much more savory than anything they had eaten for days, and so much better than they expected to have, that it seemed absolutely perfect. Besides furnishing an ample breakfast, there was enough meat left for another meal, and that they packed in the knapsacks with the bread and cheese.

By the time breakfast was concluded the day was far advanced toward noon, and the boys hastened on their way. The trail up the caÑon, though the bottom was very sandy, was sufficiently plain to leave the travelers in no doubt. After two or three miles, too, where the caÑon became narrow and rocky, the trail turned to the right up the mountain, and there, on the harder ground, it was well beaten.

To the inexperienced traveler it would have seemed that the traffic must be very considerable to maintain so well-defined a road. The boys, however, were familiar with a land of scanty rainfall and knew that in such a dry region tracks are obliterated very slowly. So they were not uneasy about meeting people, for they knew that they might possibly travel two or three days and see no one. If they might only be allowed to place a reasonably safe distance between themselves and the village where they had had such an unpleasant adventure, they would rather meet people than not.

The road plunged at once into difficult mountains, more difficult than the boys had ever seen before. They did not know that the region is called the “Russian Alps,” and that it furnishes scenery which is grander and more magnificent than that in the true Alps. The road would climb up out of a caÑon for two or three thousand feet by a series of zigzags over a lofty divide, and descend by another switchback into a similar caÑon on the other side. The caÑons were narrow, deep, and gloomy, and were crowded so closely together that there was absolutely no level ground between.

From the summit of any high divide the boys looked off both ways and saw only a confused jumble of mountains and ravines, picked out by occasional salient peaks. Sometimes there was a descent of not more than a mile in a direct line, and yet the road was so tortuous that half a day of strenuous walking was required to reach the bottom.

On the sides of the caÑons were perched villages, curious collections of rough rock houses, always above the bottom of the caÑon, and often far above, away out of reach, except by an hour of hard climbing. As the boys advanced into the mountains the villages were situated at greater heights, and were more difficult of access.

For many hundreds of years the great Caucasian Range was a harbor of refuge for oppressed people of various nationalities. Greek and Roman deserters from the armies of Alexander the Great and Pompey fled to its fastnesses; Mongols found asylum there, and Arabs, Jews, and later, Armenians. All these peoples, to insure their security, built their habitations in inaccessible places. That they planned well was shown by the way in which they held out against both Turks and Persians. There is a saying among the Persians, which has become a proverb: “If the Shah becomes too proud, let him make war with the highlanders of Daghestan.”

Though the boys walked as rapidly as possible in their anxiety to get away from the village where they had been imprisoned, night came while they were still up on the top of the first high divide which they had climbed after leaving the caÑon. Away behind, and far below them, was the slope where they knew the village lay, though at that distance they could not make out the houses.

The boys saw that they would be obliged to pass the night on the summit, for while it was still light where they were, down in the caÑon into which the trail descended it was already dark. They looked about and found a place where two or three great rocks formed a protected angle, and there they prepared to make their beds. That performance was very simple, consisting only of picking the loose stones from a space large enough for them to lie down. Then Sidney took their supper out of the knapsacks.

“Yum! yum!” said Raymond, as he watched his brother take out the food; “won’t that rabbit be good, though!”

Sidney paused and looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked:—

“Is there anything you would specially like for supper, Ray?”

“How about some caviare, like that we had on the Volga steamer, and a cup of coffee; yes, and a little butter.”

“What would you say to a glass of water?”

Raymond looked thunderstruck. “For Heaven’s sake, Sid! We haven’t any water, have we?”

“I don’t find any here.” And Sidney peered into the knapsack.

“What boneheads we are, Sid, and I was hardly moistened through after that other dry spell.” And Raymond groaned dismally.

“Well, I must say,” said Sidney, “I should think water would be the last thing we’d forget now. We can’t get down to the bottom of that caÑon to-night, either, and there’s not likely to be any water this side of the bottom.” And Sidney looked down into the deep gloom of the ravine at their feet.

“It’s a dry supper, that’s sure,” said Raymond. “It’s a good thing that rabbit has no salt.”

“Oh, well, we’ll forget all about it once we’re asleep, and we can hike down to the next stream as soon as it’s light.” And Sidney spread the meat, bread, and cheese out on the ground before them.

“No cheese for yours truly, thank you,” said Raymond, “but I’ll take some meat and bread, if you please.”

“I guess it would be wise to let the cheese go by to-night,” agreed Sidney; “it’s a little too salty for a dry lunch.”

“There’s one thing sure, Sid; we’ve got to scare up something to carry water in. We may be caught like this often.”

“Meantime, we’ll have to stop where there is water, if we make only half a day.”

The roast rabbit was savory enough to assist the consumption of a little dry bread, and the lack of water did not prevent the boys from going to sleep almost as soon as they lay down. Early to bed, the old jingle truthfully says, is early to rise, and the boys were awake before the sun had touched the peaks around them, and while the caÑons were still in dense shadow.

It required only a minute or two for the travelers to roll up their blankets and start on their hike down into the next ravine. At its bottom was a little stream that seemed, to the thirsty boys, to be flowing nectar.

In the afternoon of that day they observed a village, the first one, but as it was perched up on the side of the ravine, and they happened at that time to be in the bottom, they passed stealthily, and thought themselves fortunate to get by. An hour or two later, when they found that the trail was leaving the caÑon to climb another mountain, they camped right there by the stream, determined not to be surprised by another dry camp.