Charlie Brooke felt rather than saw that they had passed under a portal of some sort, and were advancing along a narrow passage. Soon they turned to the left, and a faint red light—as of fire—became visible in the distance. Buck Tom stopped.
“There’s no one in the cave but him, and he’s asleep. Follow me.”
The passage in which they stood led to a third and shorter one, where the light at its extremity was intense, lighting up the whole of the place so as to reveal its character. It was a corridor about seven feet high and four feet wide cut out of the solid earth; arched in the roof and supported here and there by rough posts to make it still more secure. Charlie at once concluded that it led to one of those concealed caverns, of which he had heard more than once while crossing the country, the entrances of which are made in zig-zag form in order to prevent the possibility of a ray of light issuing from the outside opening.
On reaching the end of the third passage he found that his conjecture was right, for the doorway or opening on his left hand conducted into a spacious cave, also hollowed out of the earth, but apparently against a perpendicular cliff, for the inner end of it was of unhewn rock. The roof of the cave was supported by pillars which were merely sections of pine-trees with the bark left on. These pillars and the earthen walls were adorned with antlers, skulls, and horns of the Rocky mountain sheep, necklaces of grizzly-bear’s claws, Indian bows and arrows, rifles, short swords, and various other weapons and trophies of the chase, besides sundry articles of clothing. At the inner end of the cave a large fireplace and chimney had been rudely built, and in this was roaring the pine-wood fire which had lighted them in, and which caused the whole interior to glow with a vivid glare that seemed to surpass that of noon-day.
A number of couches of pine-brush were spread round the walls, and on one of these lay a sleeping figure. The face was turned towards the visitor, who saw at a glance that it was that of his former friend and playmate—but it was terribly changed. Hard toil, suffering, sickness, dissipation, had set indelible marks on it, and there was a slight curve about the eyebrows which gave the idea of habitual pain. Yet strange to say, worn and lined though it was, the face seemed far more attractive and refined than it had ever been in the days of robust health.
Buck Tom went to the fire and began to stir the contents of a big pot that hung over it, while Charlie advanced and stood for some minutes gazing at the countenance of his friend, unwilling to disturb his slumbers, yet longing to cheer him with the glad news that he had come to succour him. He chanced, however, to touch a twig of the pine branches on which the sleeper lay, and Shank awoke instantly, raised himself on one elbow, and returned his friend’s gaze earnestly, but without the slightest symptom of surprise.
“O Charlie,” he said at last in a quiet voice, “I wish you hadn’t come to me to-night.”
He stopped, and Charlie felt quite unable to speak, owing to intense pity, mingled with astonishment, at such a reception.
“It’s too bad of you,” Shank went on, “worrying me so in my dreams. I’m weary of it; and if you only knew what a terrible disappointment it is to me when I awake and don’t find you there, you wouldn’t tantalise me so. You always look so terribly real too! Man, I could almost pledge my life that you are no deception this time, but—but I’m so used to it now that—”
“Shank, my dear boy,” said Charlie, finding words at last, “it is no deception—”