The effort was made, and the sheeted rock was brought to a perpendicular; when it was grappled by the men with might and main, lifted clear from its bed, and thrust aside, letting the sunlight down upon the bottom of the cave through a chasm nearly large enough to permit two men to jump in abreast. There was now a dead pause; and all eyes were turned on the chasm in silent and trembling expectation. But nothing appearing, the hunter and ex-sheriff crept down prostrate to the brink of the chasm, and worked their heads cautiously below, to get a fuller view of the interior. After looking, with slightly varied positions, about a minute, they both rose and came up on the bank; when the ex-sheriff, turning to the hunter, softly said: "He is there. I caught sight of his legs standing in a corner near the mouth of the cave. Did _you_ get a view?" "Yes, a better one than that; I saw his legs, and as much of his body as I could without bringing my _own_ head within the line of his eyes. He stands there on the watch, with cocked rifle pointing to this opening, while he has a dirk within his left hand grasping the rifle, and I think a pistol within his other hand, held in a similar manner. I can read his plan." "What is it, as _you_ read it?" "To take the first that enters with his rifle, pistol the second, make a rush through the rest, and stab as he goes." "About the truth, probably. But what is to be done? Shall you and I leap down, make a spring upon him, and stand our chance?" "Why,--yes," replied the hunter, with a little hesitation; "yes, if we can't do better than throw away one good life, at least, for a bad one. But if we could contrive to divert his attention suddenly to the mouth of the cave--" "You are right! Stay here a moment, and I will put matters in train to carry out your suggestion," eagerly interrupted Turner, taking the sheriff confidentially aside. In a few minutes the determined ex-sheriff followed by four or five stout, resolute men, whose special assistance he had bespoken for the occasion, returned to the side of the hunter, and said: "Get down there in your old position, where you can watch his movements. They have gone down to unblock the mouth of the cave outside, and make a feint of entering. If they succeed in drawing his fire, I will take that as a signal,--if not, then you give me the word, at the right moment, when his head, and with it naturally his rifle, is turned to the supposed new point of attack, and I will leap down and make a spring to get within the line of the muzzle before he can fire; and, the instant I disappear, you and these men follow, and be close on my heels for the grapple."