a boot, for the
craggy ledges hid all the ground but this, a mere sediment of sand in
a tiny hollow in the rock from which the water had evaporated. It was a
key' to the mystery. Instantly the rugged edges of the cliff took on the
similitude of a path. Once furnished with this idea, he could perceive
adequate footing all adown the precipitous way. He was not young; his
habits had been inactive, and were older even than his age. He could
not account for it afterward, but he followed for a few paces this
suggestion of a path down the precipitous sides of the stream. He had
a sort of triumph in finding it so practicable, and he essayed it still
farther, although the sound of the water had grown tumultuous at closer
approach, and seemed to foster a sort of responsive turmoil of the
senses; he felt his head whirl as he looked at the bounding, frothing
spray, then at the long swirls of the current at the base of the fall
as they swept on their way down the gorge. As he sought to lift his
fascinated eyes, the smooth glitter of the crystal sheet of falling
water so close before him dazzled his sight. He wondered afterward how
his confused senses and trembling limbs sustained him along the narrow,
rugged path, here and there covered with oozing green moss, and slippery
with the continual moisture. It evidently was wending to a ledge. All at
once the contour of the place was plain to him; the ledge led behind
the cataract that fell from the beetling heights above. And within were
doubtless further recesses, where perchance the moonshiners had worked
their still. As he reached the ledge he could see behind the falling
water and into the great concave space which it screened beneath the
beetling cliff. It was as he had expected--an arched portal of jagged
brown rocks, all dripping with moisture and oozing moss, behind the
semi-translucent green-and-white drapery of the cascade.

But he had not expected to see, standing quietly in the great vaulted
entrance, a man with his left hand on a pistol in his belt, the mate of
which his more formidable right hand held up with a steady finger on the
trigger.

This much Nehemiah beheld, and naught else, for the glittering profile
of the falls, visible now only aslant, the dark, cool recess beyond,
that menacing motionless figure at the vanishing-point of the
perspective, all blended together in an indistinguishable whirl as his
senses reeled. He barely retained consciousness enough to throw