The cave itself was an interesting natural phenomenon with a rocky entrance as well concealed as that of any pirate's lair. Inside it was as large as a small room, dank and dark. But if you directed a search-light here and there against its wet, rocky walls you would see scores of names and initials scratched upon the surface to prove that the weary artists had achieved their seven mile hike and might claim credit for Test Four. The verification was usually enough for the presiding powers. It was nearly noontime when Danville and Skinny approached this romantic destination after their long hike over mountains and through dense woods. "I'm glad I don't have to write up the account of it with my feet," said Danville. "This is some spooky place; I bet ghosts live here. Let's take a look inside and then we'll sit out under this tree and eat." "You have to stoop down and crawl under that rock," said Skinny, "and then you walk between those two others; it's really one big rock that's split; then you're on the inside. In the middle it's water so you have to step around the edge, but there's plenty of room where it's dry. There's lots of little red lizards inside. If you catch one by the tail it's good luck." "Not for the lizard." "No, for the feller that catches him by the tail." "You got a flash-light!" Danville asked. [Illustration: HE LED THE WAY, CRAWLING ON HANDS AND KNEES.] Of course Skinny had no flash-light; he had nothing mentioned in the alluring scout equipment list. But he did try to "be prepared" in his humble way and he had a metal shaving-stick box containing a few matches. This gloomy cave was his exhibit and he proudly led the way, crawling on hands and knees under the slab of overhanging rock which was a sort of vestibule leading under an uprooted tree. Part of this great root (enough to keep the fallen tree alive) still had anchorage in the ground, but the sun-baked tentacles of the rest of it hung in air like some outlandish whip-lash curtain and through this mass the visitor must crawl, assailed by these lifeless, dangling pendants. This grotesque approach opened upon a cleft between great rocks, or the parted halves of one great rock, and here the explorer could walk erect through a passage roofed by the great tree that had fallen over the top of the cleft. It was an intricate entrance to the dank, secluded chamber within, an earthly and rocky dungeon where one's voice sounded strange to one's own ears.