as they had
fallen, except for the old wagon-tongue and a board or two with which
he built a barricade against the unknown depths at the farthest margin
of the floor. Then drawing the mattress to one side, and clearing it
of its contents, he fell upon it with a sigh of comfort, and was again
plunged into slumber--slumber prolonged far into the following day.

CHAPTER VI

A MYSTERIOUS GUEST

When he awoke, a bar of sunshine which at first he mistook for an
outcropping of Spanish gold, glowed against the granite wall of his
mountain-top retreat. He rose in leisurely fashion--henceforth there
would be plenty of time, years of it, running to waste with useless
days. After eating and partaking sparingly of the brackish water of
the keg, he nailed together two long sideboards of the dismembered
wagon; and having secured these end to end, he fastened in parallel
strips to the surface short sticks as steps to his ladder. This
finished, he made a rope-ladder. The ladder of boards was for use in
leaving the cave; the rope-ladder, which he meant to hide under some
boulder near the crevice, could be used in making the descent.

The formless mass of inchoate debris, the result of his toilsome
journeys of the night before, was left as it had fallen--there would be
time enough to sort all that, a hundred times. At present, he would
venture forth with the sole object of examining his surroundings.
"This suits me exactly," he muttered, with a good-humored chuckle;
"just doing one thing at a time, and being everlasting slow about doing
that."

Fastening the rope-ladder about his waist, he scaled the boards, and on
reaching the top, cast them down. First, he looked all about, but no
living creature was in sight. "This is just to my hand," he said
aloud, seeking a suitable hiding-place for the rope-ladder; "I always
did despise company."

Stowing away the rope-ladder in a secure fissure between two giant
blocks of granite, each the size of a large two-story house, he crossed
to the first ridge, and looked out over the prairie, to triumph over
the vacant spot where the covered wagon had stood fifteen hours before.
"No telling what a man can do," he exclaimed admiringly, "that is to
say, if his name is Brick Willock."

His eyes wandered to the mound of stones built over the woman's grave.
His prayer recurred to his mind. "Well, God," he said, looking up at
the cloudless sky, "I guess you're doing it!" After this expres