from the governor's
pardon, which might have difficulty in finding him in the craggy bosom
of Nipple Top!

This gang of men--there is some doubt whether they were accompanied
by women--gave little evidence in their appearance of being escaped
criminals or expectant kings. Their movements were mysterious but not
necessarily violent. If their occupation could have been discovered,
that would have furnished a clew to their true character. But about this
the strangers were as close as mice. If anything could betray them, it
was the steady light from the cavern, and its occasional ruddy flashing.
This gave rise to the opinion, which was strengthened by a good many
indications equally conclusive, that the cave was the resort of a
gang of coiners and counterfeiters. Here they had their furnace,
smelting-pots, and dies; here they manufactured those spurious quarters
and halves that their confidants, who were pardoned, were circulating,
and which a few honest men were "nailing to the counter."

This prosaic explanation of a romantic situation satisfies all the
requirements of the known facts, but the lively imagination at once
rejects it as unworthy of the subject. I think the guide put it forward
in order to have it rejected. The fact is,--at least, it has never been
disproved,--these strangers whose movements were veiled belonged to that
dark and mysterious race whose presence anywhere on this continent is a
nest-egg of romance or of terror. They were Spaniards! You need not
say buccaneers, you need not say gold-hunters, you need not say swarthy
adventurers even: it is enough to say Spaniards! There is no tale of
mystery and fanaticism and daring I would not believe if a Spaniard is
the hero of it, and it is not necessary either that he should have the
high-sounding name of Bodadilla or Ojeda.

Nobody, I suppose, would doubt this story if the moose, quaffing deep
draughts of red wine from silver tankards, and then throwing themselves
back upon divans, and lazily puffing the fragrant Havana. After a day of
toil, what more natural, and what more probable for a Spaniard?

Does the reader think these inferences not warranted by the facts? He
does not know the facts. It is true that our guide had never himself
personally visited the cave, but he has always intended to hunt it up.
His information in regard to it comes from his father, who was a mighty
hunter and trapper. In one of his expeditions over Nipple Top he chanced
upon