“Never fear for me.”
With the faithful guard upon the outside, Teddy unhesitatingly re-entered the cavern, and began his explorations.
The cave in no place was found to be over twenty feet in width. The bottom was generally level, composed of rock and hard, dry earth. The sides were the same, the dirt crumbling beneath the touch like ashes.
Nothing unusual was observed until he had very nearly reached the scene of his affray with the Blackfeet, and here something was seen.
Teddy’s heart gave a great bound, and his eyes sparkled, as he saw that he was really in a golden cave. It was all around him, beneath his feet, over his head, and on every hand.
It was like a gorgeous dream indeed; so like his night vision that he kept moving about to make sure that it was not a repetition.
But no; he could see the yellow dust shining everywhere—that bright, glittering yellow, the dearest color in existence to half the world, and which will set nine-tenths of mankind crazy by the mere sight of it.
At first glance it seemed to Teddy that the gold existed only in the shape of dust or sand, deposited plentifully around him; but an examination revealed altogether a different and curious form of deposit.
Reaching up his hand, to scoop down some of the auriferous particles, he grasped instead a loose stone that was loaded with gold; the same thing was repeated until he made the discovery that it existed alone in that form.
It was as if a rock, nine-tenths of which was pure gold, had been blown to fragments in the center of the cave, the pieces burying themselves on every hand.