boards down that they might fall to one side of the provisions.
This done, he returned to the wagon, from above invisible, but
which, when he stood on the plain, loomed dim and shapeless against
the night.

There were great stores of comforts and even some luxuries in the
wagon, and it was hard for him to decide what to take next;
evidently Henry Gledware and his wife had expected to live in their
wagon after reaching their destination, for there was a stove under
the seat, and a stovepipe fastened to one side of the wagon.

"If the Indians don't catch me at this business," said Willock,
looking at the stove, "I'll get you too!" He believed it could be
lowered between the stone lips of his cave-mouth, for it was the
smallest stove he had ever seen, surely less than two feet in width.
"I'll get you in," said the plunderer decidedly, "or something will
be broke!"

For the present, however, he took objects more appropriate to
summer: the mattress upon which he had passed the afternoon, a
bucket in which he packed boxes of matches, a quantity of candles,
soap, and the like. This bucket he put in the middle of the
mattress and flanked it with towels and pillows, between which were
inserted plates, cups and saucers. "I'll just take 'em all," he
muttered, groping for more dishes, "I might have company!"

The mattress once doubled over its ill-assorted contents, he was
obliged to rope both ends before he could carry it in safety. This
load, heavier than the last, he succeeded in getting to the crevice,
and as he poised it over the brink a few yards from where the