After eating all of this peculiar food-product that grew on the plateau, they gleaned the field above the deep gorge, and as a last resort they made a hunting expedition to the half-acre of rocks and brambles where they had found the mica. Terrible as the passage through the cavern had at first seemed to the mind of Lieutenant Coleman, the lapse of time and a better acquaintance with the interior of the subterraneous tunnel made it but a commonplace covered way to the field of mica. Not that the soldiers had any further use for the mineral wealth which was so lavishly strewn among the rocks. It was as valueless to them now as the button-hook found in the hand-bag of alligator-skin. To go now and then through the underground passage, however, if only for the purpose of looking at the world outside from the view-point of their newest territorial possession, was a temptation which no landed proprietors could resist. The little shelf afforded them a glimpse to the south of the Cove road, which on account of certain intervening trees was not to be had from the plateau above. Several cabins could be seen smoking in the small clearings which surrounded them, but since the telescope had gone into the avalanche with Philip there was but poor satisfaction in looking at them. They found a single piece of the liver-colored fungus growing on the root of a half-decayed old chestnut, and even this they regarded as well worth their journey. They spent some time wandering about the mica shelf, and when Lieutenant Coleman and Philip were boring their torches into the ground, one after the other, to rid them of the dead coal, and getting ready for the start back, Bromley, who had been poking about among the rocks, called to them in a tone of voice that indicated a pretty important discovery in the stone line. He was down on his hands and knees on the turf, boring his toes into the soil, and as his comrades approached him, he exclaimed: "I haven't touched it yet. Just come here and look!" [Illustration: "HE WAS DOWN ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES UPON THE TURF."]