Within the space of a minute the appearance of the quickly-catching blaze, now seen leaping in a thousand dimly-sparkling tongues of flame, from layer to layer and from side to side, through the crevices of the loosely-packed mass, gave proof that the whole pile was becoming thoroughly ignited. And the next moment the cave, and the whole visible range of rocks above, were lost to sight in the dense cloud of smoke that deeply wrapt and rolled over them. Expecting every instant to hear the agonized cries of the victim, now seemingly enfolded in the very embrace of the terrible element, calling aloud for mercy and offering submission, the whole company, crowding the gorge below, or peering over from the surrounding cliffs, climbed for the purpose, stood for some time mute and appalled at the spectacle, and the thought of the fearful issue it involved. No sound or sight, however, except the crackling of the consuming fagots and the flaring sheet of the ascending flames, greeted their expectant senses. “Pretty much as I have long thought it would turn out, in the end,” said the trapper, the first to break the silence as the fire was seen to be slacking away, without any thing yet being heard from the dreaded inmate of the cave. “His master is taking him off in a winding-sheet of smoke and flame. I shouldn’t be surprised at a clap of thunder or an earthquake to wind up with.” “At any rate,” observed another of the crowd, “he must be suffocated by this time.” “Yes,” responded a third, “dead, dead as a door-nail; so, there is an end of the incarnate Beelzebub that we have known by the name of Gaut Gurley.” “I am not so clear about that,” now interposed the hunter, who had stood intently watching the varying aspects of the fire and smoke about the cave. “I thought, myself, that this operation must put him on begging terms, if any thing would; and the question is, whether it wouldn’t now, before he found himself in any danger of smothering. I don’t understand it; but stay,--what is that rising from the top of the rocks, some distance back from the front of the den? Mr. Sheriff, do you see it?” “See what, sir?” “Why, that slender column of smoke rising gently out of the top of the rocks, directly over the cave, and growing more visible every moment, as the smoke from the fire down here in front becomes light and thin in the clear blaze.” “I do see what appears, here, to be something of the kind not proceeding directly from the fire,--yes, plainly, now. What does it mean, Mr. Phillips?” “It means that the rascal has a chimney to his house, or what, for his safety, is the same. The rocks forming the top of the cavern are piled up so loosely that the smoke rises through them almost as easy and natural as from a chimney. He had nothing to do but to throw himself on the bottom, to be out of its way, and breathe as good air as the best of us.”