"They sure never would," Lance assented. "And I've never told a 260 soul—_but_ Sylvane—about the place. I was even kind o' duberous about showing you," and he laughed teasingly. "Might need a hide-out some time, that nobody didn't know where to find."
There was a Phoebe-bird's nest just at the opening of the cave. Lance drew Callista back, both of them standing half crouched, while the mother, returning home, flitted past them and fed her babies.
"Mighty late for that business," whispered Lance.
"Second brood, I reckon," Callista murmured back.
"Or maybe got broke up with the first brood," Lance added.
The little dell was so remote that the birds were less shy than where they have been intruded upon by man and civilization, and the mother betrayed little uneasiness when the two visitors crept closer.
"My, ain't it scairy!" Callista said, peering beyond into the cave. Then, as they descended the bank once more, "Hit looked like there might be wildcats in it."
"I aimed to explore it this time and get to the end if I could," Lance replied. "I was fifteen year old when I found that place, and I used to scheme it out, like a boy will, that if I'd ever go with the Jesse James gang, or kill a man, or anything to get the law out after me, I'd hide there; and then, oncet Caney was 261 up, all the world couldn't find me."
"What'd you eat?" objected practical Callista.
Lance smiled. "I could take care of myself in the woods about as well as any of the critters," he told her.