For one instant he glanced at it, stepped back a step, dropped the rusty rifle and cocked his own, as if expecting a ghost or panther to emerge. None came, however, and once more Old Cy advanced and peered into this opening. A faint light illumined its interior--a weird slant of sunlight, yet enough to show a roomy cavern. The mystery was solved. This surely was the hiding-spot of the strange trapper! "Can't see why I missed it afore," Old Cy muttered, kneeling that he might better look within, and sniffing at the peculiar odor. "Wonder if the cuss is dead in thar, or what smells so!" Then he arose and grasped the slab of slate. One slight pull and it fell aside. "A nat'ral door, by hokey!" exclaimed Old Cy, and once more he knelt and looked in. The bravest man will hesitate a moment before entering such a cavern, prefaced, so to speak, by two abandoned canoes, a rusty rifle, human head covering, each and all bespeaking something tragic, and Old Cy was no exception. That he had come upon some grewsome mystery was apparent. Canoes were not left to rot in the wilderness or rifles dropped without cause. And then, that hat! Surely here, or hereabout, had been enacted a drama of murderous nature, and inside this cavern might repose its blood-stained sequel. But the filtering beams of light encouraged Old Cy, and he entered. No ghastly corpse confronted him, but instead a human, if cramped, abode. A fireplace deftly fashioned of slate occupied one side of this cave; in front a low table of the same flat stone, resting upon small ones; and upon the table were rusty tin dishes, a few mouldy hardtack, a knife, fork, and scraps of meat, exhaling the odor of decay. A smell of smoke from the charred wood in the fireplace mingled with it all. In one corner was a bed of brown fir twigs, also mouldy, a blanket, and tanned deerskins. The cave was of oval, irregular shape, barely high enough for Old Cy to stand upright. Across its roof, on either side of the rude chimney, a narrow crack admitted light, and as he looked about, he saw in the dim light another doorlike opening into still another cave. Into this he peered, but could see nothing. "A queer livin' spot," he muttered at last, "a reg'lar human panther den. An' 'twas out o' this I seen the smoke come. An' here's his gun," he added, as, more accustomed to the dim light, he saw one in a corner. "Two guns, two canoes, an' nobody to hum," he continued. "I'm safe, anyhow. But I've got to peek into that other cave, sartin sure," and he withdrew to the open air. A visit to a couple of birches soon provided means of light, and he again entered the cave. One moment more, and then a flaring torch of bark was thrust into the inner cave, a mere crevasse not four feet wide, and stooping, as he now had to, Old Cy entered and knelt while he looked about.