water of the keg, he nailed together two long sideboards of the
dismembered wagon; and having secured these end to end, he fastened
in parallel strips to the surface short sticks as steps to his
ladder. This finished, he made a rope-ladder. The ladder of boards
was for use in leaving the cave; the rope-ladder, which he meant to
hide under some boulder near the crevice, could be used in making
the descent.

The formless mass of inchoate debris, the result of his toilsome
journeys of the night before, was left as it had fallen--there would
be time enough to sort all that, a hundred times. At present, he
would venture forth with the sole object of examining his
surroundings. "This suits me exactly," he muttered, with a
good-humored chuckle; "just doing one thing at a time, and being
everlasting slow about doing that."

Fastening the rope-ladder about his waist, he scaled the boards,
and on reaching the top, cast them down. First, he looked all
about, but no living creature was in sight. "This is just to my
hand," he said aloud, seeking a suitable hiding-place for the
rope-ladder; "I always did despise company."

Stowing away the rope-ladder in a secure fissure between two giant
blocks of granite, each the size of a large two-story house, he
crossed to the first ridge, and looked out over the prairie, to
triumph over the vacant spot where the covered wagon had stood
fifteen hours before. "No telling what a man can do," he exclaimed
admiringly, "that is to say, if his name is Brick Willock."

His eyes wandered to the mound of stones built over the woman's