In a dark corner she found a blackened coffee-pot and a frying-pan, proclaiming anachronistically that here was the twentieth century interloping upon the fifteenth, articles which Norton had hidden here. In another corner were jumbled the things which the ancient people had left to mark their passing, an earthenware water-jar, half a dozen spear and arrow points of stone, a clumsy-looking axe still fitted to its handle of century-seasoned cedar, bound with thongs. "But," exclaimed the girl, "the wood, the raw-hide . . . they would have disintegrated long ago. They must belong to the age of your coffee-pot and frying-pan!" "The air is bone-dry," he reminded her. "What little rain there is never gets in here. Nothing decays; look yonder." He showed her a basket made of withes, a graceful thing skilfully made, small, frail-looking, and as perfect as the day it had come from a pair of quick brown hands under a pair of quick black eyes. She took it almost with a sense of awe upon her. "Keep it, will you?" he asked lightly. "As a memento. Presented by a caveman through your friend the sheriff. Now let's get back before they miss us. I may have need of this place some time and I'd rather no one else knew of it." They made their way back as they had come and in silence, Virginia treasuring the token and with it the sense that her friend the sheriff had cared to share his secret with her. They made of the day an occasion to be remembered, to be considered wistfully in retrospect during the troubled hours so soon to come to each one of the four of them. While Elmer and Florrie gathered fire-wood, Norton showed Virginia how simple a matter it was here in this seldom-visited mountain-stream to take a trout. Cool, shaded pools under overhanging, gouged-out banks, tiny falls, and shimmering riffles all housed the quick speckled beauties. Then, as Norton had predicted, the fish were fried, crisp and brown, in sizzling bacon-grease, while the thin wafers of bacon garnished the tin plate bedded in hot ashes. They nooned in the shady grove, sipping their coffee that had the taste of some rare, black nectar. And throughout the long lazy afternoon they loitered as it pleased them, picked flowers, wandered anew through the ruins of the King's Palace, lay by the singing water, and were quietly content. It was only when the shadows had thickened over the world and the promise of the primroses was fulfilled that they made ready for the return ride. Before they had gone down to their horses the moths were coming to the yellow flowers, tumbling about them, filling the air with the frail beating of their wings.