e road led on and up, winding back and forth zigzag fashion on the
south wall, until it reached that wonderful cavern of fairyland, the
Grand Caverns. Thousands of tourists annually come to see its wonders,
but to the boys there were other caves more magic in their spell, for
they had not yet become "civilized," as the fellows said, by being
lighted with electricity and "engraved" by human hands.

As they passed through the Narrows they began to climb up the east wall,
at a point where an immense pile of broken stone from the ledges above
had collected. This is the doorway to Huccacode. The entrance to the cave
is a mere crack in a mighty white wall that rises a hundred feet.

Bundles and boxes were placed on a convenient ledge, candles lighted, and
all made ready. The end of the string was fastened to a shoot of
sagebrush just outside the opening; and the group passed in, Shorty in
the lead with an electric flashlight, and Phil bringing up the rear,
trailing the string. Far back in this wonderful cave there is a joining
of passages, and parties entering without a string have often become
lost, and have traveled several times around in a great circle before
finding the lead out.

The cave is a series of chambers connected by what appears to be an
overlapping of rooms. The voices of the boys sounded hollow and far away,
while the candles cast long, grotesque shadows on the walls. As the
column advanced, the leader shouted back now and then to "watch out to
the left" or "to be careful to the right" or "to mind your footing."
As the trail led off on the side of the Bottomless Pit they halted, and
the usual ceremony was gone through. They twisted several newspapers
together into a torch and, lighting them, dropped them into the pit. They
watched as the torch went down and down and down, lighting the way for a
fleeting instant into the very depths of the earth; past ugly, jagged
rocks, past flat shelves of limestone, past straight, smooth walls of
rock till, at last, it burned itself out, still going down into the vast,
mysterious crevice.

"It's a strange sight, to be sure," remarked Mr. Allen. "I have seen it a
good many times now, and I have no trouble in believing the old Indian
legend about it."

"I have never heard it," said Willis. "Won't you tell it to us? This
would be such a good time. Let's put out all the lights except mine; I'll
stick it here on this projection and we'll sit in the end of this big
room whil