"Be quick! Quick!"
It was Aunt Peggy who came panting into the opening with a rush, and, colliding with McEwen, sent him tumbling backwards.
By the time the bewildered New Englander was on his feet again, Maggie Brainerd, Eva, her father, and Gravity Gimp came crowding into the narrow place, all nearly out of breath.
There was a general looking around in the semi-gloom, and Habakkuk's disappointment was shared by those who had not seen the place before.
It was of little account, and, although it might be made to answer as a temporary refuge, it could hardly be expected to furnish secure defense for an extended time.
Descending a narrow path for twenty feet, and all the time along the face of the ravine, as it may be called, they reached a spot which looked as if it had been scooped out of the solid stone wall.
It ran back a dozen feet or more, and was about the same breadth and height, but the difficulty was that the opening was fully as great, so that, viewed from the front, the person or animal who might seek shelter there was in plain sight.
The spot was one of the many romantic ones that abound in the mountains fringing the Wyoming Valley. The rapidly sloping path that the fugitives followed terminated in front of the cave, which, therefore, could only be approached from the single direction. Beyond, the path narrowed off to nothing, leaving a perpendicular wall of stone for twenty feet below, and almost as much overhead.
The ravine on which this bordered was fifty feet across, but directly opposite was the weak point of the defense.
A mass of rocks rose fully as high, if not a few feet higher, than the cavern in which the fugitives had taken refuge; consequently, if an enemy could gain a position behind these boulders, he could fire down into the opening, where our friends had no means of protecting themselves from the shots.