“‘I wish you would, sir. Jake was as good a companion as ever trapped beaver, or gnawed poor bull in the spring, and he treated his squaw as if she was a white woman.’
“‘For your sake I will; we may see others of our acquaintance before leaving this,’ says he, sorter queer-like, as if to mean, no doubt of it.
“The door of the room we had been talking in shut of its own accord. We stooped, and he touched a spring in the wall, a trap-door flew open, showing a flight of steps. He went first, cautioning me not to slip on the dark stairs; but I shouted not to mind me, but thanked him for telling me, though.
“We went down and down, until I began to think the old cuss was going to get me safe too, so I sung out—‘Hello! which way; we must be mighty nigh under Wah-to-yah, we've been going on so long?’
“‘Yes,’ said he, much astonished; ‘we're just under the Twins. Why, turn and twist you ever so much, you do not lose your reckoning.’
“‘Not by a long chalk! This child had his bringing-up at Wapakonnetta, and that's a fact.’
“From the bottom we went on in a dampish sort of a passage, gloomily lit up with one candle. The grease was running down the block that had an auger-hole bored in it for a candlestick, and the long snuff to the end was red, and the blaze clung to it as if it hated to part company, and turned black, and smoked at the point in mourning. The cold chills shook me, and the old gentleman kept so still, the echoes of my feet rolled back so solemn and hollow, I wanted liquor mighty bad—mighty bad!
“There was a noise smothered-like, and some poor fellow would cry out worse than Comanches a-charging. A door opened, and the old gentleman touching me on the back, I went in and he followed. It flew to, and though I turned right around, to look for sign to escape, if the place got too hot, I couldn't find it.
“‘What now, are you dissatisfied?’
“‘Oh, no! I was just looking to see what sort of a lodge you have.’