en door in place had been recently shaped to its present purpose.
Then a soft, rhythmic sound like a giant breathing in his sleep caught
the old hunter's keen ear.

"Watch out, Johnnie," he called, catching her arm, "What's that?
Listen!"

Her fingers were almost on the bar. They could hear the soft lip-lip of
the water as it welled out beneath the threshold, mingled with the
tinkle and fall of the spring branch below.

Johnnie turned in her uncle's grasp and clutched him, staring down.
Something shining and dark, brave with brass and flashing lamps, stood
on the rocky way beneath, and purred like a great cat in the broad
sunlight of noon--Gray Stoddard's motor car! The two, clinging to each
other on the steep above it, gazed half incredulous, now that they had
found the thing they sought. It looked so unbelievably adequate and
modern and alive standing there, drawing its perfectly measured breath;
it was so eloquent of power and the work of men's hands that there
seemed to yawn a gap of half a thousand years between it and the raid in
which it was being made a factor. That this pet toy of the modern
millionaire should be set to work out the crude vengeance of wild men in
these primitive surroundings, crowded up on a little rocky path of these
savage mountains, at the door of a cave spring-house--such a food-cache
as a nomad Indian might have utilized, in the gray bluff against the
sky-line--it took the breath with its sinister strangeness.

They turned to the barred door. The cave was a sizable opening running
far back into the mountain; indeed, the end of it had never been
explored, but the vestibule containing the spring was fitted with rude
benches and shelves for holding pans of milk and jars of buttermilk.

As Johnnie's hand went out to the newly cut bar, her uncle once more
laid a restraining grasp upon it. A dozen men might be on the other side
of the oaken door, and there might be nobody.

"Hello!" he called, guardedly.

No answer came; but within there was a sound of clinking, and then a
shuffling movement. The panting motor spoke loud of those who had
brought it there, who must be expecting to return to it very shortly.
Johnnie's nerves gave way.

"Hello! Is there anybody inside?" she demanded fearfully.

"Who's there? Who is it?" came a muffled hail from the cave, in a voice
that sent the blood to Johnnie's heart with a sudden shock.

"Uncle Pros, we've found him!" she screamed, pushing the old ma