Snake Gulch 



breathe fer about five minutes. Then they take a 

 notion I m dead an crawl off. But sure, if I d 

 breathed I d been a goner ! &quot; 



All of this was playfully intended for the extinc 

 tion of an unoffending and impressionable tenderfoot. 



With an admiring glance at my tormentors, I 

 rolled out my sleeping-bag and crawled into it, vow 

 ing I would remain there even if devil-fish, armed 

 with pikes, invaded our cave. 



Late in the night I awoke. The bottom of the 

 canon and the outer floor of our cave lay bathed in 

 white, clear moonlight. A dense, gloomy black 

 shadow veiled the opposite canon wall. High up 

 the pinnacles and turrets pointed toward a resplen 

 dent moon. It was a weird, wonderful scene of 

 beauty entrancing, of breathless, dreaming silence 

 that seemed not of life. Then a hoot-owl lamented 

 dismally, his call fitting the scene and the dead still 

 ness ; the echoes resounded from cliff to cliff, strangely 

 mocking and hollow, at last reverberating low and 

 mournful in the distance. 



How long I lay there enraptured with the beauty 

 of light and mystery of shade, thrilling at the lone 

 some lament of the owl, I have no means to tell ; but 

 I was awakened from my trance by the touch of 

 something crawling over me. Promptly I raised my 

 head. The cave was as light as day. There, sitting 



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