For some distance their course dipped downward at a gentle angle, while the ceilings and sides dripped with moisture.  Soon they heard the sound of running water, and entering a wider room saw sparkling in the lantern’s light a stream that came from under the rocky wall, crossed their path, and disappeared under the other wall of the chamber.  “Lost Creek!” ejaculated the shepherd, as he picked his way over the stream on the big stones.  And the boy answered, “Pete knows.  Pete knows.”

From the bank of the creek the path climbed strongly upward, the footing grew firmer, and the walls and ceiling drier; as they went on, the passage, too, grew wider and higher, until they found themselves in a large underground hallway that echoed loudly as they walked.  Overhead, pure white stalactites and frost-like formations glittered in the light, and the walls were broken by dark nooks and shelf-like ledges with here and there openings leading who could tell where?

At the farther end of this hallway where the ceiling was highest, the guide paused at the foot of a ledge against which rested a rude ladder.  The shepherd spoke again, “Dewey Bald?” he asked.  Pete nodded, and began to climb the ladder.

Another room, and another ledge; then a long narrow passage, the ceiling of which was so high that it was beyond the lantern light; then a series of ledges, and they saw that they were climbing from shelf to shelf on one side of an underground canon.  Following along the edge of the chasm, the doctor pushed a stone over the brink, and they heard it go bounding from ledge to ledge into the dark heart of the mountain.  “No bottom, Daniel.  Blast it all, no bottom to it!  What would Sarah and the girls say?”

They climbed one more ladder and then turned from the canon into another great chamber, the largest they had entered.  The floor was perfectly dry; the air, too, was dry and pure; and, from what seemed to be the opposite side of the huge cavern, a light gleamed like a red eye in the darkness.  They were evidently nearing the end of their journey.  Drawing closer they found that the light came from the window of a small cabin built partly of rock and partly of logs.

Instinctively the two men stopped.  Pete said in a low tone, as one would speak in a sacred presence, “He is there.  Come on, Dad.  Come, other man.  Don’t be scared.”

Still the boy’s companions hesitated.  Mr. Howitt asked, “Who, boy? who is there?  Do you know who it is?”

“No, no, not me.  Nobody can’t know nothin’, can they?”

“Hopeless case, Daniel; hopeless.  Too bad, too bad,” muttered the physician, laying his hand upon his friend’s shoulder.

The shepherd tried again, “Who does Pete say it is?”

“Oh, Pete says it’s him, just him.”

“But who does Pete say he is?” suggested Dr. Coughlan.