The younger boy had stumbled into a heap of split wood. Dummy—or somebody else—had spent some time in preparing a great heap of fuel against just such a storm as this that now raged over the valley of the Colasha.
“And Dan,” whispered Billy, eagerly, “wouldn’t he have his woodpile pretty near to the door of the cave? What do you think?”
“I think you’ve got a good head on you,” returned Dan, promptly. “Let’s go careful here.”
Right at hand was a thick, low clump of bushes. The snow was heaped upon and into this brush, until it was waist high, only the tops of the bushes sticking out.
And, strangely enough, there seemed to be a narrow path, crooked as a ram’s horn, but quite plain—through the midst of this brush-clump.
“Look, there!” exclaimed the watchful Dan. “Leads right to the steep side of that rock. Come on.”
“But there’s no way of getting through that big boulder!” gasped Billy.
“Under it, perhaps,” ventured Dan.
He stooped as he spoke and tossed the snow aside. He got below the interlocked branches of the bushes, and knelt upon the stony ground. There was a sort of a tunnel under the brush. The ground was packed hard.
“By the paws of some wild animal that must have used this runway once,” whispered Dan. “It leads to his den.”