A MARVELLOUS CAVE. 385 



information from a notorious liar off his guard, and 

 speaking sooth by accident, as I could from one of 

 greater general veracity on his purposed fashion of un 

 truth, and I now quote from an unmitigated vagabond 

 and prevaricator, the man who was so improperly re 

 commended to me as my guide, who really knew no 

 more of the prairies than pertained to the beaten path 

 which led to that bait or lure for industrious as well as 

 idle sinners the gold-decked " Peak of Pike." This 

 man one day in conversation, when he had nothing to 

 get by lying, told me that he had a great friend of his 

 once living in the Rocky Mountains, who hunted a good 

 deal, and for many years " on his own hook," who had 

 told him of a vast deal of curious things to be met with 

 in that wild region. He never would tell me why this 

 friend of his was there, but I suspect that he had fled 

 from civilisation in haste, on account of the commission 

 of murder or other heinous crimes ; and when I wanted 

 to know more of his history or his present whereabouts, 

 Mr Canterall persisted in it that he was dead. 



Thus far, however, the information I sought for was 

 accorded: This fugitive from his fellow-men reached 

 the mountains in possession of nothing more than a 

 blanket, tobacco, and his fire-arms, and used to live in 

 huts made of bushes, or sticks and grass, and in caves. 

 In his search for caves in which to shelter himself, and 

 which had always to be reconnoitred during the day for 

 fear of his becoming the sole lodger of a grizzly bear, he 

 came on a very large cave, more remarkable for the 

 things in it than the others. He described it as one " in 

 which the stones and rocks had been a great deal tumbled 

 about, and on the flat sides of some of them he saw the 



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