CHAPTER X. THE WONDERFUL CAVERN.

Teddy O’Doherty had no time to wonder how these red-skins had got there. It was sufficient to know that he was thrown among them, and that there was no retreat for either party.

The Irishman anxiously peered into the cavern to see how many foes he had, but was somewhat relieved to find that he had but two to combat.

“Begorra! if ye’d only lay aside yer wippons,” he muttered, “and take yer shillaleh like a Christian mon, I’d wilcome the chance that threw me in yer way, and as it is, whoop, hurrah! and come on, and the divil take yees!”

With which he executed a leap in the air, flipping one of his heels with the flat of his hand, and uttering a defiant whoop at the same time, as a challenge for his dusky enemies to advance to the encounter.

The two Indians were without guns, they having laid them down, no doubt, at some other place, but each possessed his tomahawk and knife. Teddy had his _cuchillo_ also in his girdle, although it had not been left there with any thought that it would be called into requisition for any such purpose.

Instead of drawing his knife, Teddy placed himself in position, as though he were some pugilistic champion, with his fists as his bulwarks.

“Be jabers! if I only had some place to back up ag’inst,” he muttered, as he glanced over his shoulder. “I have the other side of this blamed old kinyon, but, as the same is twinty feet away, I can’t lean against it very well, and at the same time, there’s little danger of the spalpeens attacking me in the raar.”

There was that consolation, truly, but Teddy stood in a very ticklish position, where a slight blow was likely to send him over the rock into the water below.

The Indians evidently looked upon themselves as masters of the situation; but, at the same time, they were very wary about attacking a man to whom such a bellicose attitude seemed to come very natural.

They made no outcry, but grasping their knives, and fixing their dark eyes upon the white man, like cats about to pounce upon their prey, they separated from each other, and cautiously advanced to the assault.

Teddy was no unskilful pugilist, and he saw that, barring any accident, he had the advantage of these dusky assassins, despite the knives in their hands; for they knew nothing at all of the art of self-defense.

Several feet separated the hostile parties, when the Irishman made a lightning-like leap, sending out a terrific left-hander at the same time, “straight from the shoulder,” that, striking the nose of the astonished red-skin, sent him turning several back-somersaults.

Wheeling with the same extraordinary celerity, he bestowed a similar compliment upon the other red-skin, and vigorously following it up, forced him over the edge of the rock into the cañon below.

Old Stebbins had not been long in detecting that something was wrong with his friend. He understood what his defiant whoop meant, and knew that he had dropped into a nest of Indians.

But how to help him!

There was no possible way open; for, if he should attempt to descend by means of the grape-vine, he would be at such a disadvantage that it would be nothing less than suicide. So he could only hold his rifle ready to seize the first opportunity that should present itself.

It was not long in coming. When Teddy toppled his man over the edge of the rock, he had scarcely reached the water below, when the sharp crack of the trapper’s rifle rung above the din of waters, and the miserable red-skin floated away, as limp and lifeless as the garments upon his person.

“Now, give us another, Teddy!” called out old Stebbins, as he caught up the other gun.

But there was good reason why the other didn’t come.

When Teddy turned to seize him, he saw him spring to his feet, and start backward into the cave with all speed.

“Be jabers, yees can’t run fur in that direction, as me mither observed whin the piggy run his head into the pratie-pot,” exclaimed Teddy, as he dashed after him.

But it was impossible for him to take heed to his feet, and he had taken scarcely a half dozen steps, when a sudden rise in the floor of the cavern caused him to trip and fall forward, with no little violence, upon his face.

“Worrah, worrah, but that rock ain’t very soft,” he muttered, as he picked himself up, and rubbed his bruised countenance. “Where did that spalpeen go?”

At his first entrance into the cave, he naturally supposed that it extended backward but a short distance; but he had already penetrated a hundred feet, and there were no signs of its ending.

Nor did the light decrease. It was faint; but still, when the eyes became accustomed to it, sufficient to see one’s surroundings. Looking ahead, Teddy saw a circular opening, through which this partial light of day entered.

“Be jabers, but that’s the place where the haythen come in!” concluded Teddy, as he paused in amazement and looked in that direction.

And while he thus stood gazing, the opening was darkened by a moving body, which almost instantly disappeared.

“That’s the rid-skin goin’ out,” rightly concluded the Irishman, as he hurried along after him.

For fully two hundred feet more, the wondering Teddy made his way along the subterranean cavern, looking neither to the right nor the left, but with his eye fixed upon the light opening, which seemed to shine like a beacon light to him.

When the opening was reached, he unhesitatingly walked out into the open air, and found himself on the bank of the stream, very near the point, where he and old Stebbins had left it.

“This route is much aisier than t’other,” concluded Teddy, as he looked wonderingly about him, “and I rispict the sinse of the haythen that used it to come in by.”

Fixing the place in his mind, so that there could be no mistake about finding it again, he hurried to rejoin his friend.

The trapper, as a matter of course, was intensely excited and apprehensive. The sounds of the tumult below him, having suddenly died out, made it appear that Teddy had “gone under” by the hands of the treacherous Blackfeet.

While he was in this distressing uncertitude, he descried the Irishman hastening toward him. He raised his hands in amazement, but before Teddy could speak the trapper comprehended how the thing had come about.

“You’ve allers been a lucky dog, Ted, ever since we knowed you,” he remarked, as the Irishman came up; “tell me all about it.”

It required Teddy but a few minutes to do this in his own peculiar manner. He related every thing succinctly, from the moment his feet rested upon the edge of the rock to the time when he emerged from the cavern by its back door.

“Quaar that the red-skins war thar,” said old Stebbins. “Thar don’t seem to be many places in this country whar the varmints ain’t. I wonder what they war doin’ thar?”

“Don’t yees saa it was the _goold_?” said Teddy, in a low, delighted voice.

“Did yer take a look ’round and see any of the yaller stuff?”

Teddy slapped his thigh a tremendous thwack.

“I knowed I’d furgot somethin’, as me father obsarved, whin we missed the corpse of me mither, afther goin’ a mile to the church widout it. I was so interested in the haythen that I niver thought of the goold.”

“I’m afeard you won’t find much thar,” said the trapper, feeling somewhat of a reaction from the high hopes he had entertained.

“_It’s there!_” was the confident assertion of Teddy. “I know it; that’s what brought the haythen there.”

“But they don’t know the valley of gold.”

“They know it’s a handy thing to make ear-rings of, and that they kin git plenty of powder and lead fur it at the Forts.”

“Wal, we’ll have to take another look in thar. Shall it be you or me?”

“Why not both?”

The trapper shook his head.

“Ef it warn’t fur the varmints we might, but they’re too thick fur as to give ’em a chance to lock us up in thar.”

“Yees are right,” assented Teddy, who saw the prudence of his companion; “do yees act the part of sintinel, and I’ll take a betther look at the insides of the cavern.”

This was agreed upon, and the two set out for the bank of the stream, where the opening occurred. It was found to be nearly circular in character, like the mouth of an immense columbiad, so that an ordinary-sized man was compelled to stoop quite low to enter. The top of the bank projected over and concealed the orifice, so that there was little danger of seeing it, unless it was made a special search, or its existence was previously known.

“Do yer want yer gun?” inquired the trapper, as his friend was ready to enter.

“No; I kin do betther wid me fists on them spalpeens, ef there should be any of ’em in there. Do yees mind and not let any of ’em steal in upon me.”

“Never fear for me.”

With the faithful guard upon the outside, Teddy unhesitatingly re-entered the cavern, and began his explorations.

The cave in no place was found to be over twenty feet in width. The bottom was generally level, composed of rock and hard, dry earth. The sides were the same, the dirt crumbling beneath the touch like ashes.

Nothing unusual was observed until he had very nearly reached the scene of his affray with the Blackfeet, and here something _was_ seen.

Teddy’s heart gave a great bound, and his eyes sparkled, as he saw that he was really in a golden cave. It was all around him, beneath his feet, over his head, and on every hand.

It was like a gorgeous dream indeed; so like his night vision that he kept moving about to make sure that it was not a repetition.

But no; he could see the yellow dust shining everywhere--that bright, glittering yellow, the dearest color in existence to half the world, and which will set nine-tenths of mankind crazy by the mere sight of it.

At first glance it seemed to Teddy that the gold existed only in the shape of dust or sand, deposited plentifully around him; but an examination revealed altogether a different and curious form of deposit.

Reaching up his hand, to scoop down some of the auriferous particles, he grasped instead a loose stone that was loaded with gold; the same thing was repeated until he made the discovery that it existed alone in that form.

It was as if a rock, nine-tenths of which was pure gold, had been blown to fragments in the center of the cave, the pieces burying themselves on every hand.

There was gold everywhere, and in abundance. There were thousands of dollars, and the trappers had but to secure it to secure to themselves comfort and opulence for the rest of their days.

Teddy stood for several minutes in silence, and then he heaved a great sigh.

“Whin I was at home in ould Ireland, I had two pockets big enough to thrust in three or four of the goats that war always wandering about our farm. Ah! if I only had them pockets now!”

And he ruefully ran his hands as far down in his trowsers as they would go, and found they would not quite reach his knees.

“That’s all, and that ain’t half ’nough.”

But he did the best thing possible under the circumstances. He began gathering the precious nuggets, and continued the work until his capacious pockets would hold no more, and there was imminent risk of their bursting with their overload.

Then he filled his hands and began laboring toward the entrance.

It proved a labor indeed, for the specific gravity of this precious metal is very great, and it was all he could do to reach the entrance with his freight.

Here, as may be supposed, the trapper was anxiously awaiting him. The load was distributed between them, and they set out on their return. “Headquarters” were reached without any thing unusual occurring and there they awaited the coming of Black Tom.