[Gutenberg 42206] • The Camp Fire Girls at the End of the Trail

The castle had been built before the first known palace in Europe. It was fashioned centuries ago inside the walls of a stone cliff with two taller cliffs rising on either side. Beyond was a break between, allowing a narrow entrance to the cliff dwelling from the outside. In front there was a small plateau of rock ending in a precipice, which descended with a drop of a hundred feet to a new ledge, and then came another still deeper fall. That afternoon a group of four persons were inside the ancient cliff dwelling. One of them-a young girl in an odd costume which was partly modern and yet suggesting an older race-had climbed to the crest of the ruins and stood, with her hand above her eyes, gazing about her. Another girl, in a chamber below, was sitting upon a comfortable camp stool which she had undoubtedly brought with her, she was hammering industriously with a small steel hammer, and now and then stopped to work with her chisel at a solid stone wall. Evidently she believed some extraordinary treasure was embedded inside, since she never glanced away from her labors.