Had a grinning skull met his eyes, he would not have been more astounded. In fact, that was the next object he expected to see, and he glanced up and down the crevasse for it. None leered at him, however, and picking up the rusted weapon, he continued his search.
Two rods or so below where he had climbed the upper ledge, he was halted again, for there, at his hand almost, was a curious doorlike opening some three feet high and one foot wide, back of an outstanding slab of slate.
The two abandoned canoes had surprised him, the rusty rifle astonished him, but this, a self-evident cave entrance, almost took his breath away.
For one instant he glanced at it, stepped back a step, dropped the rusty rifle and cocked his own, as if expecting a ghost or panther to emerge. None came, however, and once more Old Cy advanced and peered into this opening. A faint light illumined its interior–a weird slant of sunlight, yet enough to show a roomy cavern.
The mystery was solved. This surely was the hiding-spot of the strange trapper!
“Can’t see why I missed it afore,” Old Cy muttered, kneeling that he might better look within, and sniffing at the peculiar odor. “Wonder if the cuss is dead in thar, or what smells so!”
Then he arose and grasped the slab of slate. One slight pull and it fell aside.
“A nat’ral door, by hokey!” exclaimed Old Cy, and once more he knelt and looked in.
The bravest man will hesitate a moment before entering such a cavern, prefaced, so to speak, by two abandoned canoes, a rusty rifle, human head covering, each and all bespeaking something tragic, and Old Cy was no exception. That he had come upon some grewsome mystery was apparent. Canoes were not left to rot in the wilderness or rifles dropped without cause.
And then, that hat!