vibration rang out. Again and again the sound was repeated--now loud,
still clanging; now faint, but clear; now soft and away to a doubtful
murmur which he hardly was sure that he heard. Never before had he
known such an echo. And suddenly he recollected that this was the great
"Talking Rock," famed beyond the limits of Lonesome. It had traditions
as well as echoes. He remembered vaguely that beneath this cliff there
was said to be a cave which was utilized in the manufacture of saltpetre
for gunpowder in the War of 1812.

As he looked down the slope below he thought the snow seemed broken--by
footprints, was it? With the expectation of a discovery strong upon
him, he crept along a wide ledge of the crag, now and then stumbling and
sending an avalanche of snow and ice and stones thundering to the foot
of the cliff..He missed his way more than once. Then he would turn
about, laboriously retracing his steps, and try another level of the
ledges. Suddenly before him was the dark opening he sought. No creature
had lately been here. It was filled with growing bushes and dead leaves
and brambles. Looking again down upon the slope beneath, he felt very
sure that he saw footprints.

"The old folks useter 'low ez thar war two openings ter this hyar
cave," he said. "Tobe Gryce mought hev hid hyar through a opening down
yan-der on the slope. But _I'll_ go the way ez I hev hearn tell on, an'
peek in, an' ef I kin git a glimge o' him, I'll make him tell me whar
that thar filly air,--or I'll let daylight through him, sure!"

He paused only to bend aside the brambles, then he crept in and took his
way along a low, narrow passage. It had many windings, but was without
intersections or intricacy. He heard his own steps echoed like a
pursuing footfall. His labored breathing returned in sighs from the
inanimate rocks. It was an uncanny place, with strange, sepulchral,
solemn effects. He shivered with the cold. A draught stole in from some
secret crevice known only to the wild mountain winds. The torch flared,
crouched before the gust, flared again, then darkness. He hesitated,
took one step forward, and suddenly--a miracle!

A soft aureola with gleaming radiations, a low, shadowy chamber, a beast
feeding from a manger, and within it a child's golden head.

His heart gave a great throb. Somehow he was smitten to his knees.
Christmas Eve! He remembered the day with a rush of emotion. He stared
again at the vouchsafed vision. He rubbed hi