widened perceptibly. His first act on setting foot to the stone flooring was to open the tarpaulin, draw forth a candle and a box of matches, and strike a light. The chamber of granite in which he stood was indeed narrow, but full of interest and romance. The floor was about the same width in all its length, wide enough for Willock, tall as he was, to stretch across the passage. It extended perhaps a hundred feet into the heart of the rock, showing the same smooth walls on either side. The ceiling, however, was varied, as the outward examination had promised. Overhead the stars were seen at ease through the two feet of space at the top; but as he carried his candle forward, this opening decreased, to be succeeded presently by a roof, at first of jumbled stones crushed together by outward weight, then of a smooth red surface extending to the end.

The floor was the same everywhere save at its extremities. At the point of Willock's descent, it dipped away in a narrow line that would not have admitted a man's body. At the other end, where he now stood, it suddenly gave way to empty space. It came to an end so abruptly that there was no means of discovering how deep was the narrow abyss beyond. Possibly it descended a sheer three hundred feet, the depth of the ridge at that place. On the smooth floor which melted to nothingness with such sinister and startling suddenness, the candlelight revealed the skeleton of a man lying at the margin of the unknown depths. Mingled with the bones that had fallen apart with the passing of centuries, was a drawn sword of blackened hilt and rusted blade—a sword of old Spanish make—and in the dust of a rotted purse lay a small heap of gold coins of strange design.

"Well, pard," said Brick Willock grimly, "you come here first and much obliged to you. You've told me two things: that once in here, no getting out—unless you bring along your ladder; and what's better still, nobody has been here since you come, or that wouldn't be my money! And now having told me all you got to say, my cavalier, I guess we'd better part." He raked the bones into a heap, and dashed them into the black gulf. He did not hear them when they struck bottom, and the sinister silence gave him an odd thrill. He shook his head. "If I ever roll out of bed here," he said, "me and you will spend the rest of the time together, pardner."

He did not linger for idle speculation, but drew himself up his dangling rope, and in a short time was once more outside the place of refuge. Always on the lookout for possible watchers, he snatched up his bread and meat, and ate as he hastened over the outer ridge and down the rugged side toward the wagon. Here he filled a box with canned provisions and a side of bacon, and on top of this he secured a sack of flour. It made a heavy burden, but his long sleep had restored him to his wonted strength, and he could not be sure but this trip to the wagon would be his last. With some difficulty he hoisted the box to his herculean shoulder, and grasping a spade and an ax in his disengaged hand, toiled upward to his asylum.

When the crevice in the mountain-top was reached, he threw the contents of the box down into the tarpaulin which he had spread out to receive it, and having broken up the box with the ax, cast the boards down that they might fall to one side of the provisions. This done, he returned to the wagon, from above invisible, but which, when he stood on the plain, loomed dim and shapeless against the night.

There were great stores of comforts and even some luxuries in the wagon, and it was hard for him to decide what to take next; evidently Henry Gledware and his wife had expected to live in their wagon after reaching their destination, for there was a stove under the seat, and a stovepipe fastened to one side of the wagon.

"If the Indians don't catch me at this business," said Willock, looking at the stove, "I'll get you too!" He believed it could be lowered between the stone lips of his cave-mouth, for it was the smallest stove he had ever seen, surely less than two feet in width. "I'll get you in," said the plunderer decidedly, "or something will be broke!"

For the present, however, he took objects more appropriate to summer: the mattress upon which he had passed the afternoon, a bucket in which he packed boxes of matches, a quantity of candles, soap, and the like. This bucket he put in the middle of the mattress and flanked it with towels and pillows, between which were inserted plates, cups and saucers. "I'll just take 'em all," he muttered, groping for more dishes, "I might have company!"

The mattress once doubled over its ill-assorted contents, he was obliged to rope both ends before he could carry it in safety. This load, heavier than the last, he succeeded in getting to the crevice, and as he poised it over the brink a few yards from where the tarpaulin lay, he apostrophized it with—"Break if you want to; pieces is good enough for your Uncle Brick!"

When he left the wagon with his next burden, he was obliged to bend low under buckets, tools, cans and larger objects. As he moved slowly to preserve equilibrium, he began to chuckle. "Reckon if the Injuns saw me now," he said aloud, "they'd take me for an elephant with the circus-lady riding my back!" At the crevice, he flung in all that would pass the narrow opening intact, and smashed up what was too large, that their fragments might also be hidden.

"Pshaw!" grunted Willock, as he started back toward the wagon, mopping his brow on his shirt-sleeve, "Robinson Crusoe wasn't in it! Wonder why he done all that complaining when he had a nice easy sea to wash him and his plunder ashore?"

He was beginning to feel the weariness of the morning return, and the load that cleaned out the wagon-bed left him so exhausted that he fell down on the ground beside the crevice, having thrown in his booty. Here, with his gull at his side and a pistol in his hand, he fell fast asleep.

He lay there like a man of stone until some inner consciousness began beating at the door of his senses, warning him that in no great time the moon would rise. He started up in a state of dazed bewilderment, staring at the solemn stars, the vague outlines of giant rocks about him and the limitless sea of darkness that flowed away from the mountain-top indicating, but not defining, the surrounding prairie.

"Get up from here!" Willock commanded himself. He obeyed rather stiffly, but when he was on his feet, ax in hand, he made the trip to the wagon nimbly enough. As he drew near, he saw gray shadows slipping away—they were wolves. He shouted at them disdainfully, and without pause began removing the canvas from over the wagon. When that was done, his terrific blows resolved the wagon-bed to separated boards, somewhat splintered but practically intact. By means of the wrench he removed the wheels and separated the parts of the wagon-frame. Always, when he had obtained enough for a load, he made that toilsome journey to his retreat. He took the four wheels at one time, rolling them one by one, lifting them singly from ledge to ledge.

The last of his work was made easier because the darkness had begun to lift. Suddenly a glow appeared at the rim of the world, to be followed, as it seemed, almost immediately by the dazzling edge of an immense silver shield. The moon rolled over the desert waste and rested like a solid wheel of fire on the sand. Instantly for miles and miles there was not a shadow on the earth. The level shafts of light bathed with grotesque luminous distinction the countless prairie-dogs which, squatting before the mouths of their retreats, barked at the quick betrayal. Coyotes, as if taken by surprise, swung swiftly toward remote mountain fastnesses, their backs to the light.

When Willock made his last and slowest trip to the ridge, his feet dragging like lead, there was nothing to show that a covered wagon had stood at the edge of the prairie; the splinters of the final demolition had already mingled indistinguishably with the wind-driven sand. Arrived at the second