Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/89

Rh room; narrowed so that as he walked he could brush the rock at both sides with his elbows; widened again after a long, winding, still descending passage-way. And now at length, when he was again at a level with the tumbling waters in the river bed, did the cavern open up to its greatest size and did he come into fresher air, a subdued light and view of his "plunder" secreted five years ago.

In this lofty cavern a man might have built himself a house of half a dozen rooms. Ages ago … how many, Steele wondered … the water had found its way in here, and never resting had toiled through the little seconds which were drawn out into long centuries, breaking down, bearing away, wearing smooth with its fine chisels of sand and particles. At the side of the cave furthest from the river was a pile of familiar objects. Steele went to it, picking out details in the circle of his light. An axe with blade rusted a bit, pick and shovel, a half dozen cooking utensils, black from many fires, a coil of rope, some loops of wire, a jumble of odds and ends from his last camp at Hell's Goblet. "Just as I left them," was his thought. "Just as a man could count upon their remaining not five years but five hundred after he put them there. … And telling me that no one had come here since I came."

The thought brought its contentment.