The face of this queer being expanded in a crooked grimace which Johnny took to be a smile. Then, turning about, he took down a heavy slab of wood. Having grasped a sharp instrument similar to a carpenter’s drawshave, he began making the shavings fly.
“What now?” thought Johnny, as he dropped back to his place among the skins in the corner.
CHAPTER XIX
GORDON DUNCAN’S STORY
“It was years back, so many I have fairly lost track.” Gordon Duncan’s tone was deep and vibrant with emotion as he began his story of a recluse companion and the treasure of green gold. “There had been some discoveries of gold back of the Beyond among the hills and I went. I was younger then. Went alone. That was my way.
“I met with great misfortune. I found no gold. Food was scarce. I knew little of the longbow in those days. In making a try for a mountain goat, I fell over a ledge and broke a leg.
“I might have died there like some maimed wild creature, had it not been for him.” His eyes wandered to the mountain side, to the lone cabin and the trail that led away and away.
“He was a recluse then, but a kindly soul. He found me, carried me to his cabin and cared for me.
“When I was well, he hunted for us both. It was he who taught me to prize the longbow and arrow.
“In time I grew proficient in the use of these primitive weapons. Then, like him, I wandered far in search of food.
“It was on one of these hunting trips that I came upon a strange sort of grotto in the side of a cliff. There were ashes of a long burned out campfire near the entrance. My curiosity was aroused by this. Making a rude torch of dry willow twigs, I lighted my way back a hundred feet or more.