“I will go first, I am smaller,” Blaise suggested. “If I cannot go through, we shall know that no man has been in there.”
Slender and lithe, Blaise found that he could wriggle his way through without much difficulty. The heavier, broader-shouldered Hugh found the task less easy. He had to go sidewise and for a moment he thought he should stick fast, but he managed to squeeze past the narrowest spot, to find himself in an almost round hollow. This hole or pit in the outer ridge was perhaps twenty feet in diameter with abrupt rock walls and a floor of boulders and pebbles, among which grew a few hardy shrubs. It was open to the sky and ringed at the top with shrubby growth. Hugh glanced about him with a keen sense of disappointment. Surely the furs were not in this place.
Blaise, on the other side of a scraggly ninebark bush, seemed to be examining a pile of boulders and rock fragments. The older boy rounded the bush, and disappointment gave way to excitement. By what agency had those stones been heaped in that particular spot? They had not fallen from the wall beyond. The pit had no opening through which waves could wash. Had that heap been put together by the hand of man? Was it indeed a cache?
Without a word spoken, the two lads set about demolishing the stone pile. One after another they lifted each stone and threw it aside. As he rolled away one of the larger boulders, Hugh could not restrain a little cry. A bit of withered cedar had come to light. With eager energy he flung away the remaining stones. There lay revealed a heap of something covered with cedar branches, the flat sprays, withered but still aromatic, woven together closely to form a tight and waterproof covering. Over and around them, the stones had been heaped to conceal every sprig.
With flying fingers, the boys pulled the sprays apart. There were the bales of furs each in a skin wrapper. The brothers had found the hidden cache and their inheritance. Both lads were surprised at the number of the bales. If the pelts were of good quality, no mean sum would be realized by their sale. They would well repay in gold for all the long search. Yet, to do the boys justice, neither was thinking just then of the worth of the pelts. Their feeling was rather of satisfaction that they were really carrying out their father’s last command. The long and difficult search was over, and they had not failed in it.
They lifted the packages from a platform of poles resting on stones. The whole cache had been cleverly constructed. No animal could tear apart the bales, and, even in the severest storm, no water could reach them. Over them the branches had formed a roof strong enough to keep the top stones from pressing too heavily upon the furs.
“But where is the packet?” cried Hugh. “It must be inside one of the bales, but which one I wonder.”
“I think it is this one,” Blaise replied.
The package he was examining seemed to be just like the others, except that into the rawhide thong that bound it had been twisted a bit of scarlet wool ravelled from a cap or sash. Blaise would have untied the thong, but the impatient Hugh cut it, and stripped off the wrapping. The bale contained otter skins of fine quality. Between two of the pelts was a small, flat packet. It was tied with a bit of cedar cord and sealed with a blotch of pitch into which had been pressed the seal of the ring Hugh now wore.
“Shall we open this here and now, Blaise?” Hugh asked.