After a long wait, as if he wanted to observe every detail of this wondrous picture of wildwood beauty, he dipped his paddle, crossed the sheet of rippled water, and stepped ashore at the very spot where he and Ray had landed over eight months before. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, glancing around, "if thar ain't a canoe, bottom up! Two, by ginger!" he added, as he saw another drawn out and half hid by a low ledge. To this second one he hastened at once, and looked into it. It had evidently rested there all winter, for it was partially filled with water, and half afloat in it were two paddles and a setting pole. A gunny-cloth bag, evidently containing the usual cooking outfit of a woodsman, lay soaking in one end, a frying-pan and an axe were rusting in the other, and a coating of mould had browned each crossbar and thwart. "Been here quite a spell, all winter, I guess," muttered Old Cy, looking it over, and then he advanced to the other canoe. That was, as he asserted, bottom up, and also lay half hid back of a jutting ledge of slate. Two paddles leaned against this ledge, and near by was another setting pole. All three of these familiar objects were brown with damp mould and evidently had rested there many months. "Curis, curis," muttered Old Cy again. "I callated I'd find nothin' here, 'n' here's two canoes left to rot, 'n' been here all winter." Then with a vague sense of need, he returned to his canoe, seized his rifle, looked all around, over the lake, up into the green tangle above the ledges, and finally followed the narrow passage leading to where he had once watched smoke arise. Here on top of this ledge he again halted and looked about. Back of it was the same V-shaped cleft across which a cord had held drying pelts, the cord was still there, and below it he could see the dark skins amid the confusion of jagged stones. Turning, he stepped from this ledge to the lower one nearer the lake, walked down its slope, and looked about again. At its foot was a long, narrow, shelf-like projection, ending at the corner of the ledge. Old Cy followed this to its end and stepped down into a narrow crevasse. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, taking a backward step as he did so. And well he might, for there at his feet lay a rifle coated with rust beside a brown felt hat. Had a grinning skull met his eyes, he would not have been more astounded. In fact, that was the next object he expected to see, and he glanced up and down the crevasse for it. None leered at him, however, and picking up the rusted weapon, he continued his search. Two rods or so below where he had climbed the upper ledge, he was halted again, for there, at his hand almost, was a curious doorlike opening some three feet high and one foot wide, back of an outstanding slab of slate. The two abandoned canoes had surprised him, the rusty rifle astonished him, but this, a self-evident cave entrance, almost took his breath away.