"What do you think we'd better do right now?" asked Ross.
"Go back to the cup and sleep," replied Henry. "It'll be safe. The Indians will be so gorged from their orgie, and will feel so secure from attack that they'll hardly have a scout in the forest tomorrow."
"Good plan," said the shiftless one. "I expect to be in that shady little place in a half-hour. Long Jim here, havin' nothin' else to do, will watch over me all through the rest of the night, an' tomorrow when the sun comes out bright, he'll be settin' by my side keepin' the flies off me, an' me still sleepin' ez innercent ez a baby."
"That won't happen in the next thousand years," said Long Jim. "Ef thar's anything fannin' you tomorrow, when you wake up, a Shawnee or a Miami warrior will be doin' it with a tomahawk."
They quickly retraced their course to the cup, being extremely careful to leave no trail, and were about to make ready for the night. Every one of them carried a light blanket, but very closely woven and warm, upon which he usually slept, drawing a fold over him. The dry leaves and the blankets would make a bed good enough for any forest rover at that time of the year, but Henry noticed a stone outcrop in a hill above them and concluded to look farther.
"Wait till I come back," he said, and he pushed his way through the bushes.
The outcrop was of the crumbling limestone that imparts inexhaustible fertility to the soil of a great region in Kentucky. It is this decaying stone or a stone closely akin which makes it the most wonderful cave region in the world.
Higher up the slope Henry found deep alcoves in the stone, most of them containing leaves, and also a strong animal odor, which showed that in the winter they had been occupied as lairs by wild animals, probably bears.
Looking a little farther he found one that penetrated deeper than the rest. It might almost have been called a cave. It was so placed that at that time of night the opening faced a bit of the moon that had made a way through the clouds, and, Henry peering into the dusky interior, judged that it ran back about twenty feet. There was no odor to suggest that it had been used as a lair, perhaps because the animals liked the alcoves better.
He threw in some twigs, but, no growl coming forth, he entered boldly through an aperture about three feet across and perhaps five feet high. He stepped on smooth stone, but as soon as he was inside he stopped and listened intently. He heard a faint trickling sound, evidently from the far side of the cave, which appeared to be both deeper and wider than he had thought.