Lahoma - J. Breckenridge Ellis

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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 ridge, which was still in darkness, he took pains that no telltale sign should be left on the smooth expanse of granite to indicate the near presence of a man. Swinging to the lariat that was now tied to a short plank, he lowered himself into the midst of the debris with which that part of his floor was strewn. Poised on top of the heap of boards that had formed the sides of the wagon, he pushed upward with a longer plank and dislodged the one from which the rope dangled. It fell at his feet.

      Provided with nails, a hammer and plenty of lumber, it would not be difficult to construct a ladder for egress. At present, he was too tired to provide for the future. He left the spoils just as they had fallen, except for the old wagon-tongue and a board or two with which he built a barricade against the unknown depths at the farthest margin of the floor. Then drawing the mattress to one side, and clearing it of its contents, he fell upon it with a sigh of comfort, and was again plunged into slumber—slumber prolonged far into the following day.

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       Table of Contents

      When he awoke, a bar of sunshine which at first he mistook for an outcropping of Spanish gold, glowed against the granite wall of his mountain-top retreat. He rose in leisurely fashion—henceforth there would be plenty of time, years of it, running to waste with useless days. After eating and partaking sparingly of the brackish water of the keg, he nailed together two long sideboards of the dismembered wagon; and having secured these end to end, he fastened in parallel strips to the surface short sticks as steps to his ladder. This finished, he made a rope-ladder. The ladder of boards was for use in leaving the cave; the rope-ladder, which he meant to hide under some boulder near the crevice, could be used in making the descent.

      The formless mass of inchoate debris, the result of his toilsome journeys of the night before, was left as it had fallen—there would be time enough to sort all that, a hundred times. At present, he would venture forth with the sole object of examining his surroundings. "This suits me exactly," he muttered, with a good-humored chuckle; "just doing one thing at a time, and being everlasting slow about doing that."

      Fastening the rope-ladder about his waist, he scaled the boards, and on reaching the top, cast them down. First, he looked all about, but no living creature was in sight. "This is just to my hand," he said aloud, seeking a suitable hiding-place for the rope-ladder; "I always did despise company."

      Stowing

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