the bridge has a somewhat smaller span but is very handsome, and the outward views from both are exceedingly fine.  After traversing about four hundred feet more of the beautiful, high-walled Gulf, we stood before the grand entrance to the cave, which is strikingly similar to the first arch of the bridge.  The only picture I was able to get was taken from the slope of the Bridge-crown, one hundred feet below the road, and merely gives a suggestion of the magnificence waiting peacefully for the crowds of eager and enthusiastic sight-seers who will in the near future rush to this charming region in the “Land of the Big Red Apple.”

My companions were the same as mentioned in the preceding chapter, a nephew, James Arther Owen, and an obliging, tall young man of twenty, who acted as guide and driver.

Relieving ourselves of all superfluous burdens just within the cave entrance, we lighted candles and sat down to wait for our eyes to adjust themselves to the changed condition, from brilliant sunlight to absolute darkness, broken only by the feeble strength of three candles.  It was noticeable that in the moist atmosphere of the Missouri caves, three candles were not more than equal to one in the dry caves of South Dakota.

Very soon we were able to continue the inspection of our surroundings, and the large passage we were in would more properly be called a long chamber, of irregular width but averaging about thirty feet.  This ends abruptly nearly five hundred feet from the entrance, but a small passage scarcely more than six feet high runs off at right angles, and into this we turn.  It is not quite so nearly dry as the outer chamber, and at a distance of less than one hundred feet we suddenly come to the end of dry land at an elbow of the silently flowing river whose channel we had almost stepped into.  The ceiling dipped so we were not able to stand straight, and the guide said he had never gone farther; but to his surprise here was a light boat which I am ready to admit he displayed no eagerness to appropriate to his own use, and swimming about it, close to shore, were numerous small, eyeless fish, pure white and perfectly fearless; the first I had ever seen, and little beauties.

By burning magnesium ribbon we saw that the passage before us was a low arch and occupied from wall to wall by water, the direction of the flow being into another of somewhat greater size at right angles to that by which we had come, and at the mouth of this lay the boat.  The distance we could see in either direction was of tantalizing shortness, and the boat was provided with no means of guidance or control, save an abundance of slender twine which secured it to a log of drift from the outside; so I decided to leave my companions in charge of the main coil of twine while I went on an excursion alone, there being not much evident cause for apprehension as no living cow could ever have made the trip to this favored spot.