to leave the cabin, I had neglected to bring a lunch. And now, when noon came, I was very hungry. By the rules of the Service, I was privileged to take an hour off — from twelve until one — for lunch. But hungry though I was, I just would not go back to the cabin until I had to. That flitting figure I had glimpsed in the dusk haunted me. Up here on top I was perfectly safe: no one could come anywhere near my lookout station if I was minded to forbid his advance.
I concluded to use my noon hour in exploring the whole length of the summit of my mountain, and set off along its crest, from which I could see well down both slopes. The one on the west side is bare for a long way down, but on the east side a few scattering groups of stunted spruces stand within a hundred yards of the top. Not a treelet of them has a limb nor even the stub of a limb upon the west side of its trunk, proving how fierce and constant are the west winds except in the three months of sunimer.
All the way from the rough rock uplift at the southeast end of the mountain, and well beyond its saddle, the footing is of coarsely decomposed rock; then, for the last several hundred yards to the northwest end of the summit, the formation is of slabs of rock of varying size. I was passing over the first of these when I noticed, some fifty yards down to the west, a pile of the slabs in the shape of a half-circle — bowing from me — and several feet in height. I knew at once that man, not an earthquake, had made that pile, and hurried down to it. I nearly fell into a deep, narrow rift in the rock, from around which the slabs forming the half-circle had been heaved, and by Indians, in the long ago, as was proved by quantities of broken, brightly painted pottery scattered all around the place. The length of the fault in the rock, about six feet, is with that of the mountain, northwest and southeast, and about four feet wide down for about ten feet to a projection from the west side. From it the fault, too narrow to admit the body of a man, goes on down into intense blackness.
I was sure excited over my find. “My own find! My own cave hole!’’ I said, over and over, for I well knew all the men who had been fireguards upon the mountain, and though all had told of finding beads and broken pottery around the lookout, not one of them had even mentioned this place. I knelt at the edge of the northwest side of the hole and looked down into it, and saw that at ten feet down there was a black hole in the wall opposite me, apparently large enough to admit the body of a man. It might be, I thought, the passageway into a large cave in the mountain, in which had lived the people whose broken pottery was scattered all around me. And if that were so, what might I not find in the cave! Beautiful pottery; weapons; clothing, of course. Perhaps gold and silver, too! How I wished that I had a rope and a light of some kind. I could then explore that passageway.
My hour was about up, but I got upon my knees, a few feet down the slope from the hole, and soon found eleven beads in the crevices of the rock, one of them a turquoise bead almost a quarter of an inch in diameter. I hurried back to the lookout and, calling Springerville, reported that I could not see a fire anywhere in the forest.
I went outside and began to look for more beads, and in the very first little crevice that I scratched out, found seven. From the next crevice, no more than a foot long and a couple of inches wide, I got nine beads and a white flint arrow-point. At that rate I estimated that there must be thousands and thousands of beads and many arrow-points in the crevices of the little rock butte, at its base no more than a hundred feet in diameter. And why were they there, and around my cave hole, in such profusion, and apparently nowhere else upon the mountain, I wondered. Had there been a great battle between different tribes — the victors scattering to the winds the belongings of those they killed? No, that was not reasonable. The victors would have gone off with every necklace and every arrow-point of those they killed. The mystery of it was more than I could solve. I said to myself that I would cease puzzling about it, but I could not get it out of my mind. And that hole off there in the mountain — I just had to go into it! If I could only call my people on the telephone and ask that Uncle John bring me a rope. But there was little chance of my calling them; the Forest Service was so short of men that this summer there was no ranger at Riverside Station, a half-mile north of my home. I might ring Riverside for days and get no answer, unless one of the fire patrols happened in there.
In the middle of the afternoon, while I was still scratching out beads — by that time I had more than a hundred — the telephone rang for me and I hurried inside and took down the receiver: “Hello!” I said.
“Hello! Is that you, George? Are you all right up there?” came my sister Hannah’s voice, and, oh, how glad I was to hear it.
“All right,” I answered. “But how did you get to the telephone? Is there a new ranger at Riverside?”
“No. I climbed in through the window. Mother and I were worrying about you; we just had to know how you are getting on, all alone up there. Tell us all about it!”
I considered a moment before replying. Should I tell them about the sneaking figure I had seen near the cabin? No. I would keep my troubles to myself. I answered that I was more than all right, and sure excited over some finds I had made. And went on to tell about the beads I had found, the cave hole I had discovered, and how much I wanted a rope and candles, so that I could go into it. And at that Hannah became excited, and asked a lot of questions about the cave, just where it was located, and its appearance. And at last she said that I should have the things I wanted; she would bring them up and help me explore the place. I could look for her at noon the next day. And when she said that, I knew that I would have the rope and candles. Hannah is a girl that always does as she promises. Although two years younger than I, she can ride as well as the best of us, and of “sand” she has aplenty.
I was happy enough the rest of the afternoon, thinking of what I might find in the cave, and at six o’clock I rang in, reported no fires, and started for the cabin. As I neared it all my uneasiness came back to me. I left the trail and sneaked on down through the spruces and around to the north side of the little clearing and looked out. A moose bird was hopping about before the cabin porch and a chipmunk was sitting upon the peak of the roof, eating something that it held in its little paws. They gave me the feeling that all was well there. I crossed the clearing, unlocked the door, and went in, and looked around. Everything was apparently as I had left it. I took my bucket and went down to the spring for water, and then finished chinking the cabin walls. There were still places — where the chinking did not fit well against the logs — that were open, but when I daubed the outside of the cracks with mud, all would be tightly closed. I dug a hole in the ground, filled it with earth that I found near the spring, poured in some water and worked it to a sticky mass, and slammed handful after handful of it into the spaces in the south wall, and completely finished that side, and still had time to cook my supper before nightfall. I did not intend to use a light in the cabin until its walls were proof against the eyes of any prowlers of the night.
I washed, and built a fire in the stove, considering what I should have for supper. A slice of ham, boiled potatoes, bread and butter and jam, I concluded, and opened the food chest, and tossed sacks and packages about: my big, uncut ham was n’t there! Had n’t I seen it in the chest that morning — or anyhow the evening before? I was almost sure that I had seen it that morning; or when Uncle John had unloaded the grub outfit and brought it in. I believed that I had seen it in the chest some time or other, but could not be sure. Maybe it had been overlooked when we were packing my outfit, at home. I just hated to think that the ham had been in the chest and had been stolen from me. All day long I had tried to convince myself that I had not seen a shadowy figure of a man sneaking away from me into the spruces. But now— The door had always been locked during my absence. I went to the front window: it was well nailed down. I ran to the other one, and raised the lower sash with ease! The ham could have been stolen from me! All of my fears of the night before came back with a rush. I did n’t take time to cook potatoes. I barred the door, hastily fried a couple of slices of bacon, and ate them with the cold biscuit that were left from my morning meal, and went to bed with my rifle beside me. I wondered if any Boy Scout in all our United States was having as fearsome and lonely a time as I, fireguarding there on Mount Thomas, eleven miles from my nearest neighbor?
