rtain whether to show himself or not.
When I spoke to him he bounded to my side. "Guard," I said, looking
down at him thoughtfully, "it's raining harder than ever, and the wind
is blowing; now that you are with me, I think we will just stop in the
cave until the storm abates a little." Guard's bushy tail was wet and
heavy with rain, but he wagged it approvingly, and toward the cave
we started. There was a green little valley over the ridge, and I
resolved when the storm slackened, to climb up and have a look into
it. If the cattle were not there I should be compelled to give over
the hunt for that day.

A sudden lull in the storm was followed by a blacker sweep of clouds
and a resounding peal of thunder, the prelude to a pitiless burst of
hail-stones. Pelted by the stinging missiles, and gasping for breath
as I struggled against the rising wind, I made for the cave with Guard
close at my heels, and dashed into the gloomy cavern without a thought
of anything but shelter.

The entrance to the cave was merely a large opening in a pile of
rocks close beside the cattle trail, and the cave itself was famous
throughout the valley solely because of its imagined history and its
actual equipment. Because of its nearness to the trail there was
little danger of its becoming a lair for wild beasts. People said that
the spot had been the dwelling place of a man, educated and wealthy,
who had chosen to live and die alone in the wilderness. How they came
to know this was never quite clear, for the furnishing of the cave was
there, offering its mute history to the first venturesome hunter who
had penetrated these wilds years and years ago, just as it was offered
to the curious to-day. The educational theory could probably be traced
to the torn and yellowing fragments of a book that lay on the rude
table opposite the cavern entrance. How many inquisitive fingers had
turned its baffling pages, how many curious eyes had vainly scanned
them in the course of the slow moving years in which the cavern held
its secret? The book was written in a language quite unknown to us
simple folk. For the theory of wealth the rusty, crumbling old
flint-lock musket, leaning against the wall beside the table, was
silver mounted and heavily chased. Beside the table was a rude bench
made from a section of sawed pine. That was all, but impressive
legends have been handed down, from one generation to another, on less
foundation than the cave furnished to our v