We’ll start at the southern end, the spit of land and the pier. Last summer you and I walked up the spit to the canyon at the end. I call it Spit Canyon on the map. We stopped at the end and looked up at the wall. About three hundred feet up we saw a ledge. I have it marked Lookout Ledge here. Now, that’s where we saw Flame that first night, so you and I knew the rest of Azul Island couldn’t be solid rock as everyone believed … not if a horse was living inside there somewhere.

“Do you follow me?” Pitch asked. When Steve nodded, Pitch continued. “Well, back of that ledge is a cave and narrow chasm which you can’t see from the spit below. We go through the chasm and then down a steep trail that leads to the bottle-shaped canyon … I call it Bottle Canyon here. The canyon goes right to Blue Valley.” Pitch raised his eyes from the map. “Comes in right over there,” he said.

On the same wall as their camp, but almost at the far side of the valley where the wild cane grew, Steve could make out the dark, narrow cleavage in the wall. “I’ve noticed that canyon, but never went up it,” he said.

“Let’s get back to the spit again,” Pitch said, bringing his pencil back to the map. “When we saw Flame on Lookout Ledge that first night we knew there had to be an entrance to the interior of Azul Island. We realized it wasn’t possible to reach the ledge from the spit so we went back to the pier and, taking the small dory from the launch, rowed until we saw our chance to get close to the barrier wall at what I call Chimney Entrance on this map. I named it that because we climbed the cleft in the wall and went down the ventilation shaft we found on top, which is much like a chimney.

“And that took us into the tunnels,” he added quietly.

Pitch paused and Steve did not urge him to go on. Each remembered that only by the grace of God had they found their way out of the tunnels and were alive to discuss them now.

Finally Pitch moved his pencil over the multitude of lines he had drawn on the map to indicate the tunnels. “This is not a true picture of the direction or number of tunnels,” he said. “On this map I’m just giving you an idea of where they are. The work of plotting them accurately is a big job and one I’m not yet prepared to tackle.”

“But you do know them, Pitch.”

“Only some of them, Steve; a small percentage of the great number that make up this maze. They’re a world of their own … an underground world.

“But to go back to this map,” he went on. “From the tunnels we come to Blue Valley at the top of the waterfall. Then here’s the trail leading down the wall to our present campsite overlooking the valley. Now, you know the rest of this pretty well, the way we get to our launch. But I want to go over it anyway. About two miles up the valley we find the marsh, right here.”

Pitch’s pencil found the crossed marks on the left side of the valley which designated the marsh; then simultaneously he and Steve looked up in the direction of the valley. But it was too dark for them to see anything of the marsh. They turned back to the map.

“Here on the other side of the marsh,” Pitch continued, “is the dry gorge of the stream that once emptied into the marsh. We follow it until we come to the little valley. I just call it Small Valley on the map,” he explained.