Preceded by Maj, the dog, Sam and his fellow hunters entered the remarkable cave—of which we shall speak hereafter—and laid the meat on the floor.
"I began to grow uneasy about you, my boy," said Mr. Willett, as he fondly kissed his son, "meat is very desirable, but I would rather suffer for it than be worried at your absence."
Sam explained about the delay in the hunt, and then went to a spring that rose from the floor of the cave close to the fire, and here he set the example of drinking and washing himself.
Meanwhile Wah Shin began to demonstrate his position in that strangely mixed company. In nearly no time he had steaks broiling on the coals, the savory odor of which made Hank Tims, the old guide, take long inhalations with great enjoyment.
Apart from meat there was an abundance of other food in this strange camp, so that in a very short time Wah Shin, with Ike's aid, had a most excellent supper spread on a table consisting of two roughly-hewn cedar slabs, supported at either end by a square stationary stone, that had been placed there by the original but unknown cave dwellers.
[CHAPTER II.—LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD.]
It is not a little remarkable that the six dwellers in Gold Cave Camp should represent four of the five types into which scientists divide the human race, but this though curious in itself, is not nearly so much so as their being residents of this sparsely settled wilderness, and living, as it were, in caves in the depths of the earth.
Mr. Willett had been a merchant in Detroit, Michigan, where his only child, Sam, was born.
He had been very happy in his married life and very prosperous in his business; but, alas, for the stability of human affairs, his wife died. Following this awful calamity came a series of reverses in business which no human foresight could prevent. His property was swept away, and in his fortieth year he found himself a poor man, with a son to educate and care for and all life's battle to fight over again.
Mr. Willett had been educated as a mining engineer, and though he had never followed his profession he, very naturally, looked to it as a means of support when all his other resources were gone.