“The best natur' ever built,” said Pole; “an' what's more, it was in thar that I found the gold. I reckon it ud 'a' been diskivered long ago, ef it had 'a' been above ground.”
“Then it's in—a sort of cave?” ventured Craig.
“That's jest it; but I've got the mouth of it closed up so it ud fool even a bloodhound.”
Half an hour later Pole drew rein in a most isolated spot, near a great yawning canon from which came a roaring sound of rushing water and clashing winds. The sky overhead was blue and cloudless; the air at that altitude was crisp and rarefied, and held the odor of spruce pine. With a laugh Pole dismounted. “What ef I was to tell you, Mr. Craig, that you was in ten yards o' my old den right now.”
Craig looked about in surprise. “I'd think you was makin' fun o' me—tenderfootin', as we used to say out West.”
“I'm givin' it to you straight,” said Pole, pointing with his riding-switch. “Do you see that pile o' rocks?”
Craig nodded.
“Right under them two flat ones is the mouth o' my den,” said Pole. “Now let's hitch to that hemlock, an' I 'll show you the whole thing.”
When they had fastened their horses to swinging limbs in a dense thicket of laurel and rhododendron bushes, they went to the pile of rocks.
“I toted mighty nigh all of 'em from higher up,” Pole explained. “Some o' the biggest I rolled down from that cliff above.”