After about half an hour's rapid walking the Indian halted at an opening in the hillside hardly more than large enough for one to go through on his hands and knees, and motioned for the others to enter.
Cummings led the way, and while he was doing so Teddy asked Poyor:
"Have you been here often before?"
"This is the first time."
"How could you see a small hole like that while it is so dark?"
"On the line of these caves the earth is always damp. When we halted last I could feel that we were on the underground water course, and it was only necessary to follow it up. Here we shall find both food and drink."
"I don't understand where the food comes in unless we are to live on bats," Neal said laughingly, as he in turn entered the aperture.
By the time Teddy was inside Cummings had lighted a branch of what is mistakenly called fat wood, and, using this for a torch, it was possible to have a reasonably good view of the temporary home.
The boys found themselves standing in an enormous chamber, from which led several galleries or smaller rooms, lined with the same soft white stone seen in the buildings of the Silver City, and at the further end was a narrow stream rising apparently from the solid rock, crossing the cavern to the opposite side where it disappeared.
To describe the beauty of this marble chamber fashioned by nature would be impossible. Neal and Teddy had but just begun to realize its magnificence when they were startled by the whirring of wings and a clucking noise such as is made by a barn-yard fowl, and an instant later Poyor had knocked over with a piece of rock what looked very much like a chicken.