“Are you dead set again’ havin’ a little company?” sez I, slow an’ insinuatin’, “or are ya livin’ alone?”
First off, he was inclined to be resentful, then he grinned, shouldered his log again, and said: “Come and see.”
I follered him back into the hills until we came to a little park in which his ponies were grazin’, and then I hobbled mine, cached my gear alongside his, and trailed after him again. His path turned a crag and then skirted along the edge of a cliff as straight up and down as the real truth. The path kept gettin’ narrower, until every time the Friar turned a corner ahead of me, I expected to see him walkin’ off in the air with the log still on his shoulder.
Presently I turned a corner around which he had disappeared, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. The ledge still led along the cliff; but it had got thinner than a lawyer’s excuse, and a worm couldn’t have walked along it without hangin’ on. While I stood there puzzlin’ about it, a hand reached out o’ the side of the cliff, and the Friar’s voice said mockingly: “Take my hand, little one; and then shut your eyes for fear you might get dizzy.”
Then I saw a jag of rock stickin’ out just above my head, I grabbed it with my left hand, and swung around into what was the mouth of a cave. It was nothin’ but a crack about eighteen inches wide, and the far side was sunk in enough to keep it hid from where I was standin’. The Friar was standin’ a few feet back in the entrance with his log leanin’ up again’ the side. “I know not what other animals may have sought shelter here,” he said, “but for the past three years this has been my castle, and, Happy Hawkins,”—here the Friar bowed low—“obstinate and unreasonable as you are, I offer you a hearty welcome.”
The Friar said this in fun, but the’ was an undertone to it which tightened the laces around my heart consid’able. Well, that cave was a sure enough surprise; he had three or four pelts and a couple of Injun blankets on the floor, he had a couple o’ barrels fixed to catch snow water, he had some cookin’ tools; and books! Say, he must have had as many as a hundred books, all of ’em hard-shells, and lookin’ so edicated an’ officious that I had to take off my hat before I had nerve enough to begin readin’ the titles.
After I’d taken everything in, I sat down in an easy chair he’d made out o’ saplin’s and rawhide, and looked all about; but I couldn’t see any signs of their bein’ any other rooms to this cave; and then I jumped square for the mark, and sez: “Friar, the’s a lot o’ talk about you havin’ run off with Kit Murray. Now I want the straight of it.”
His face went grave and a little hurt. “It’s strange,” he said after a time, “how hard it is for a man to believe in his own guilt, and how easy for him to believe in the guilt of his neighbor. Have you had any dinner?”
“Yes,” sez I. “I didn’t know just where I was headin’; so I et three different times this mornin’ to make sure of havin’ enough to run on in case of emergency.”
“It’s a fine thing to be an outdoor animal,” sez the Friar, smilin’. “Well then, I’ve made up my mind to take you to see Kit Murray.”