Hesitating to follow, the man stood for a moment gazing back upon the town and the stretch of lovely landscape before him. It was an outlook of great charm, but I doubt if he noticed its beauties. Some thought of an unpleasant and perplexing nature furrowed his brow, and it was with a start that he turned, when the dog, reissuing from the cave, renewed his blandishments, and by dint of bark and whine attempted to draw him into the opening before which he stood.
What was in hiding there? Curiosity bade him look, but a certain not unreasonable apprehension deterred him. He finally, however, overcame his fear, if fear it was, and followed the dog, that no sooner saw him start toward the entrance than he gave a leap of delight and bounded into the cave before him. In another moment the man had entered also and was looking around for the helpless or wounded human being whom he evidently expected to find.
But no such sight met his eyes. On the contrary, he saw nothing but an empty cave with here and there a sign of the place having been used as a domicile at a recent date. In one corner was a litter of boughs from which the covering had manifestly been roughly torn, and in the ledges overhead were to be seen spikes of wood, upon which utensils had doubtless been hung, for amid the débris of broken rock beneath lay an old tin pan with the handle broken off.
As there was nothing in this to interest the man he turned and kicked at the inoffensive beast who had lured him out of his path on such a fruitless errand. But the latter instead of resenting this harshness only renewed his previous antics, and finally succeeding by them in re-attracting the man’s attention, led the way to a remote corner of the cave, where the shadows were thickest. Here he stood with his paws raised against the rocky sides, looking up over his head and then back at the man in a way which left no doubt as to his meaning.
He wanted the man to climb, and when the man approaching saw the few rocky steps that had been hewn out of the wall, his curiosity was renewed and he lent himself to the effort, old as he was and tired with many a long hour of tramping in the summer sun.
Above him he perceived a dark hole, and into this he presently thrust his head, but the darkness which he encountered was so impenetrable that he would have instantly retreated had he not remembered the box of matches which kept guard with an old pipe in a certain pocket of his red flannel shirt. Taking out this box, he struck a match and, as soon as the first dazzling flash was over, perceived that he was in a small but well furnished room, stocked with provisions and containing many articles of domestic use. This so surprised him that he withdrew in some haste, though he would dearly have liked to have made some investigation into the old chest of drawers he saw there, and had one peep at least into the odd, long box which took up so much of the darkened space into which he had intruded.
The dog was waiting for him below and at his reappearance leaped and bounded with delight, and then lay down on the floor of the cave with such an inviting wriggle of the tail that the man understood him at last. It was a lodging that the dog offered him, a lodging which had been occupied by a former master, and which the faithful creature still watched over and hungered in, as his appearance amply showed. The man, to whom a human being might have appealed in vain, was grimly touched by this benevolent action on the part of a dog, and stooping quickly, he gave him a short caress, after which he rose and stood hesitating for a moment, casting short glances behind him.
But the temptation, if it was such, to remain, did not hold him long, for presently he motioned to the dog to follow him, and issuing from the cave, began his weary tramp toward the town. The dog, with fallen tail and drooping head, trotted slowly after him. And this was the first adventure which met this man in the little town of Hamilton.