wise. When we got to the end, we were glad enough to turn
around and come back. It was a good thing to see such a place, but there
was a feeling that if the walls should cave in a little, or a big rock
should fall from the top of the passage, we should all be hermetically
canned in very close quarters. When we came out, we gave the shoemaker
commander some money, and came away.

"Isn't it nice," said Corny, "that he isn't a queen, to be taken care
of, and we can just pay him and come away, and not have to think of him
any more?"

We agreed to that, but I said I thought we ought to go and take one more
look at our old queen before we left. Mrs. Chipperton, who was a really
sensible woman when she had a chance, objected to this, because, she
said, it would be better to let the old woman alone now. We couldn't do
anything for her after we left, and it would be better to let her depend
on her own exertions, now that she had got started again on that track.
I didn't think that the word exertion was a very good one in
Poqua-dilla's case, but I didn't argue the matter. I thought that if
some of us dropped around there before we left, and gave her a couple of
shillings, it would not interfere much with her mercantile success in
the future.

I thought this, but Corny spoke it right out--at least, what she said
amounted to pretty much the same thing.

"Well," said her mother, "we might go around there once more, especially
as your father has never seen the queen at all. Mr. Chipperton, would
you like to see the African queen?"

Mr. Chipperton did not answer, and his wife turned around quickly. She
had been walking ahead with the Chicago lady.

"Why, where is he?" she exclaimed. We all stopped and looked about, but
couldn't see him. He wasn't there. We were part way down the hill, but
not far from the fort, and we stopped and looked back, and then Corny
called him. I said that I would run back for him, as he had probably
stopped to talk with the shoemaker. Rectus and I both ran back, and
Corny came with us. The shoemaker had put his bench in its place over
the trap-door, and was again at work. But Mr. Chipperton was not talking
to him.

"I'll tell you what I believe,"--said Corny, gasping.

But it was of no use to wait to hear what she believed. I believed it
myself.

"Hello!" I cried to the shoemaker before I reached him. "Did a gentleman
stay behind here?"

"I didn't see none," said the man, looking up in surprise,