Then Fred Munson awoke, it was with the impression upon him that he was near some waterfall.  He raised his head, but could detect nothing; but when he placed his ear to the ground, he caught it once again.

“I have it!” he said to himself; “there is a waterfall somewhere about here under the ground.  That’s what makes it sound so hollow when I stamp on it.”

He was greatly relieved to find that no results of his afternoon’s nausea remained by him.  He had recovered entirely, and when he rather doubtingly assumed the sitting position and felt that his head and stomach remained clear he was considerably elated in spirits.

“That shows that I can get a meal at any time, if I want it bad enough to take a few hours’ sickness in pay.  Maybe I can find something else to eat which won’t be so hard on me.  It must be very near morning, for I have slept a great while.”

The hour, however, was earlier then he supposed, and he found, after sitting awhile, that his old drowsiness was returning.

Before giving way to it, he recalled the clump of bushes, which was so near that it was easily seen from where he sat.

“I forgot that I meant to make my bed there.”

With which he rose and moved toward it, not feeling altogether certain of the wisdom of what he was doing.

“That looks very much like the place where the cougar was waiting for me, but I didn’t think there were enough in this country to furnish one for every bush.”

He reconnoitered it for several minutes, but finally ventured upon a closer acquaintance.  There certainly was no wild animal there, and he stooped down and began crawling toward the centre.

He was near the middle when he was alarmed at finding the ground giving way beneath him.  It was sinking rapidly downward, and he clutched desperately at the bushes to save himself, but those that he grasped yielded and went, too.

In his terror and despair he cried out, and fought like a madman to save himself; but there was nothing firm or substantial upon which he could lay hold, and he was helpless to check his descent.

Down, down, down he went in the pulseless darkness, lower and lower, until he found himself going through the dizzying air—­to where?

CHAPTER XXV WITHIN THE EARTH

It was like a terrible dream, and, for an instant or more, during which Fred Munson was descending through the gloom and darkness, he believed it was such indeed; but he was quickly recalled from his error by his arrival at the end of his journey.  The truth was that the boy, in crawling beneath the clump of bushes for shelter, would have crawled head first into the mouth of the cave, but for the fact that the ground immediately surrounding the opening gave way beneath his weight before he reached it.

His fall was not very far, and when he struck the ground, it was so soft and yielding that he was scarcely conscious of a jar; but the nervous shock was so great that, for a few minutes, he believed that he was fatally injured.