Page:Old ninety-nine's cave.djvu/71

 They pushed the plank along carefully and were about to signal for a hoist line when Mike lunged backward and would have fallen over the precipice but for Hernando's timely assistance. The plank was not yet attached to any thing but the rope by which it had been lowered and Mike's frantic clutchings sent it over the brink. Down, down down it went, crashing against first one side and then another. At last a faint splash proclaimed that the terrific leap was over and once more "Old Ninety-Nine's" body had eluded human gaze. The next discoverer will find it minus one ear. Learned men will account for this on scientific principles; they will analyze petrifying fluids and tell us why some portions of the body are affected and others not; but the fascination which clings so tenaciously to the memory of "Old Ninety-Nine" will endure as long as the Shawangunks, and each succeeding generation will continue to be told that "Every seven years a bright light like a candle rises at twelve o'clock over the mine and disappears in the clouds; but no one who