had been a halter, and having fastened a stone to one
end, lowered it into the black space. The length of the lariat slipped
through his fingers and the rope was following when suddenly the rock
found lodgment at the bottom. On making this discovery he drew up the
lariat, opened the cloth containing the food, and began to eat rapidly
and with evident excitement. He did not fail to watch on all sides as
he enjoyed his long delayed meal, and while he ate and thus watched, he
thought rapidly. When the first cravings of appetite were partly
satisfied, he left his baker's bread and bacon on a stone, tied up the
rest of the food in its cloth, rolled this in the tarpaulin, and
lowered it by means of the lariat into the crevice. Then, having tied
the end of the rope to the gun-barrel, he placed the gun across the
crevice and swung himself down into the gloom.

The walls of the crevice were so close together that he was able to
steady his knees against them, but as he neared the bottom they widened
perceptibly. His first act on setting foot to the stone flooring was
to open the tarpaulin, draw forth a candle and a box of matches, and
strike a light. The chamber of granite in which he stood was indeed
narrow, but full of interest and romance. The floor was about the same
width in all its length, wide enough for Willock, tall as he was, to
stretch across the passage. It extended perhaps a hundred feet into
the heart of the rock, showing the same smooth walls on either side.
The ceiling, however, was varied, as the outward examination had
promised. Overhead the stars were seen at ease through the two feet of
space at the top; but as he carried his candle forward, this opening
decreased, to be succeeded presently by a roof, at first of jumbled
stones crushed together by outward weight, then of a smooth red surface
extending to the end.

The floor was the same everywhere save at its extremities. At the
point of Willock's descent, it dipped away in a narrow line that would
not have admitted a man's body. At the other end, where he now stood,
it suddenly gave way to empty space. It came to an end so abruptly
that there was no means of discovering how deep was the narrow abyss
beyond. Possibly it descended a sheer three hundred feet, the depth of
the ridge at that place. On the smooth floor which melted to
nothingness with such sinister and startling suddenness, the
candlelight revealed the skeleton of a man lying at th