LITMIR.BIZ

CHAPTER V

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A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE

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      It came over him with disconcerting suddenness that he had lost a great deal of time, and that every moment spent in the covered wagon was fraught with imminent danger. It was not in his mind that the hand of highwaymen might discover his hiding-place. Knowing them as he did, he was sure they would not come so far from their haunts or from the Sante Fe train in pursuit of him. But the Indians roamed the Panhandle, as much at home there as in their reservations—and here they were much more dangerous. Had no savage eye discerned that wagon during the brilliant August day? Might it be that even while he slept at the feet of the dead woman, a feathered head had slipped under the canvas side, a red face had bent over him?

      It was a disquieting fancy. Willock told himself that, had such been the case, his scalp-lock would not still adorn his own person; for all that, he was eager to be gone. Instead of eating in the wagon, he wrapped up some food in a bread-cloth, placed this with a few other articles in a tarpaulin—among them, powder and shot—and, having lifted the keg of water to one shoulder, and the rope-bound tarpaulin to the other, he left the wagon with a loaded gun in his hand.

      Twilight had faded to starlight and the mountain range stood blackly defined against the glittering stars. It was easy to find his way, for on the level sands there were no impediments, and when the mountain was reached, a low divide offered him easy passage up the ascent. For the most part the slopes were gradual and in steeper places, ledges of granite, somewhat like giant stairs, assisted him to the highest ridge. From this vantage-point he could see the level plain stretching away on the farther side; he could count the ridges running parallel to the one on which he had paused, and note the troughs between, which never descended to the level ground to deserve the name of valleys. Looking down upon this tortured mass of granite, he seemed gazing over a petrified sea that, in the fury of a storm, had been caught at the highest dashing of its waves, and fixed in threatening motion which throughout the ages would remain as calm and secure as the level waste that stretched from the abrupt walls in every direction.

      On that first ridge he paused but a moment, lest his figure be outlined against the night for the keen gaze of some hidden foe. Steadying the keg with one hand and holding his gun alert, he descended into the first trough and climbed to the next ridge, meaning to traverse the mile of broken surface, thus setting a granite wall between him and the telltale wagon. The second ridge was not so high as the outer wall, and he paused here, feeling more secure. The ground was fairly level for perhaps fifty yards before its descent to the next rolling depression where the shadows lay in unrelieved gloom. On the crest, about him, the dim light defined broken boulders and great blocks of granite in grotesque forms, some suggesting fantastic monsters, others, in sharp-cut or rounded forms seemingly dressed by Cyclopean chisels.

      The fugitive was not interested in the dimly defined shapes about him; his attention had been attracted by a crevice in the smooth rock ledge at his feet. This ledge, barren of vegetation, and as level as a slab of rough marble, showed a long black line like a crack in a stone pavement. At the man's feet the crevice was perhaps two feet wide, but as it stretched toward the west it narrowed gradually, and disappeared under a mass of disorganized stones, as a mere slit in the surface.

      Presently he set the keg and the tarpaulin-ball on the ground, not to rest his shoulders, but in order to sink on his knees beside the crevice. He put his face down over it, listening, peering, but making no discovery. Then he unwound the lariat from about his waist, tied it to the rope that had been a halter, and having fastened a stone to one end, lowered it into the black space. The length of the lariat slipped through his fingers and the rope was following when suddenly the rock found lodgment at the bottom. On making this discovery he drew up the lariat, opened the cloth containing the food, and began to eat rapidly and with evident excitement. He did not fail to watch on all sides as he enjoyed his long delayed meal, and while he ate and thus watched, he thought rapidly. When the first cravings of appetite were partly satisfied, he left his baker's bread and bacon on a stone, tied up the rest of the food in its cloth, rolled this in the tarpaulin, and lowered it by means of the lariat into the crevice. Then, having tied the end of the rope to the gun-barrel, he placed the gun across the crevice and swung himself down into the gloom.

      The walls of the crevice were so close together that he was able to steady his knees against them, but as he neared the bottom they 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

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