But this whole thicket where Conner’s ruin and the cabin lay was in a close valley flanked by ranges of hills running east and west. These ranges of hills were about a quarter of a mile apart, running more or less parallel. The land between them was what I have called the valley; it was long and deep, the flanking heights being in places almost precipitous. For all I know, this whole wild vale was Rattlesnake Gulch. No old inhabitant of the region ever visited our campers to tell them otherwise. I learned the appalling name from old Buck and passed it on to my young friends. It makes very little difference how much of that forbidding section the name was supposed to include. I suppose the whole region, as far as the flanking hills to either side, might properly have been called a gulch. In hot weather the heat in this whole section was terrific, as it usually is in valleys. But it was more so, I think, than in a spacious, open valley, because, when the sun was overhead, it poured its torrid rays down into a sort of natural receptacle where the heat was confined and retained. That, I suppose, is the reason why so much of the vegetation there was dry; much of it dead or dying. One made as much noise walking over dried twigs and leaves there (even in the height of summer) as is usually made in walking on a pavement. The whole place must have been frightful in times of storm. Dead and broken trees, sticking their crazy, dislocated branches this way and that, testified to the fury of the wind as it swept through the narrow valley. Even in calm weather, such as our campers had enjoyed, the door and little window of the cabin were always rattling at night because of the draught through the long, deep, narrow valley. I often think of the winters spent by old Buck and little June in that freezing channel between the hills: winters of lashing wind and blinding snow--they must have been terrible! Well, a few days after recovering the treasure, Tom and Brent went fishing again. It was laughable, but they took the money with them (Tom carrying the wallet in his pocket) for fear of anything happening to it in their absence. They had done this before and faithfully replaced it in its romantic old container on returning, like a jewel replaced in its casket. They had fished as long as daylight and hunger would permit, and were returning through the Gulch with a tempting string of trout. These they would cook and then settle down to an evening at chess, at which game Brent was something of an expert. They would lay the board on the dining table (that is, an old barrel) sitting on either side of it on a couple of old boxes. Four candles, one at each corner of the board, gave an ecclesiastical look to their silent encounters.