ve on the densely wooded side of the mountain, beyond which lay
the broad river breathing out frosty mist and vapor from its sleeping
bosom.

Following a dry gulch until it ended abruptly at the river's bluff,
around the mouth of which great loose rocks lay as they had been
washed by the waters of many centuries, and bushes grew about, the
path terminated abruptly. It overlooked the river romantically, with
a natural rock gallery in front.

Jack Bracken stopped and sat down on one of the rocks. From
underneath he drew forth a lantern and prepared to light it. "This is
my home," he said laconically.

The Bishop looked around: "Well, Jack, but this is part of my own
leetle forty-acre farm. Why, thar's my cabin up yander. We've wound
in an' aroun' the back of my place down by the river! I never seed
this hole befo'."

"I knew it was yo's," said the outlaw quietly. "That's why I come
here. Many a Sunday night I've slipped up to the little church winder
an' heard you preach--me an' po' little Jack. Oh, he loved to hear
the Bible read an' he never forgot nothin' you ever said. He knowed
all about Joseph an' Moses an' Jesus, an' last night when he died o'
that croup befo' I c'ud get him help or anything, he wanted you, an'
he said he was goin' to the lan' where you said Jesus was--"

He broke down--he could not say it.

Stepping into the mouth of the cave, he struck a match, when out of
sight of the entrance way, and stepping from stone to stone he guided
the Bishop down some twenty feet, following the channel the water had
cut on its way underground to the river. Here another opening entered
into the dry channel, and into it he stepped.

It was a nicely turned cave--a natural room,--arched above with
beautiful white lime-rock, the stalactites hanging in pointed
clusters, their starry points twinkling above like stars in a winter
sky. Underneath, the soft sand made a clean, warm floor, and the
entire cave was so beautiful that the old man could do nothing but
look and admire, as the light fell on stalagmite and ghostly columns
and white sanded floors.

"Beautiful," he said--"Jack, you cudn't he'p gettin' relig'un here."

"Little Jack loved 'em," said the outlaw. "He'd lay here ev'y night
befo' he'd go to sleep an' look up an' call it his heaven; an' he
said that big column thar was the great white throne, an' them big
things up yander with wings was angels. He had all them other columns
named for the fellers you pr