This gang of men—­there is some doubt whether they were accompanied by women—­gave little evidence in their appearance of being escaped criminals or expectant kings.  Their movements were mysterious but not necessarily violent.  If their occupation could have been discovered, that would have furnished a clew to their true character.  But about this the strangers were as close as mice.  If anything could betray them, it was the steady light from the cavern, and its occasional ruddy flashing.  This gave rise to the opinion, which was strengthened by a good many indications equally conclusive, that the cave was the resort of a gang of coiners and counterfeiters.  Here they had their furnace, smelting-pots, and dies; here they manufactured those spurious quarters and halves that their confidants, who were pardoned, were circulating, and which a few honest men were “nailing to the counter.”

This prosaic explanation of a romantic situation satisfies all the requirements of the known facts, but the lively imagination at once rejects it as unworthy of the subject.  I think the guide put it forward in order to have it rejected.  The fact is,—­at least, it has never been disproved,—­these strangers whose movements were veiled belonged to that dark and mysterious race whose presence anywhere on this continent is a nest-egg of romance or of terror.  They were Spaniards!  You need not say buccaneers, you need not say gold-hunters, you need not say swarthy adventurers even:  it is enough to say Spaniards!  There is no tale of mystery and fanaticism and daring I would not believe if a Spaniard is the hero of it, and it is not necessary either that he should have the high-sounding name of Bodadilla or Ojeda.

Nobody, I suppose, would doubt this story if the moose, quaffing deep draughts of red wine from silver tankards, and then throwing themselves back upon divans, and lazily puffing the fragrant Havana.  After a day of toil, what more natural, and what more probable for a Spaniard?

Does the reader think these inferences not warranted by the facts?  He does not know the facts.  It is true that our guide had never himself personally visited the cave, but he has always intended to hunt it up.  His information in regard to it comes from his father, who was a mighty hunter and trapper.  In one of his expeditions over Nipple Top he chanced upon the cave.  The mouth was half concealed by undergrowth.  He entered, not without some apprehension engendered by the legends which make it famous.  I think he showed some boldness in venturing into such a place alone.  I confess that, before I went in, I should want to fire a Gatling gun into the mouth for a little while, in order to rout out the bears which usually dwell there.  He went in, however.  The entrance was low; but the cave was spacious, not large, but big enough, with a level floor and a vaulted ceiling.  It had long been deserted, but that it was once the residence of highly civilized beings