Looking back upon the hazards and chance-takings of our adventure in the wilderness¹, I recall no more promising² risk than that we ran by sleeping unsentried within rifle-shot, for aught we knew, of the camp of the enemy.  
But touching³ this, 'tis only on the mimic⁴ stage of the romances that the players rise to the plane of superhuman sagacity and angel-wit, never faltering⁵ in their lines nor betraying by slip or tongue-trip their kinship with common humankind. Being mere⁶ mortals we were not so endowed; we were but four outwearied men, well spent in the long chase, with never a leg among us fit to pace a sentry⁷ beat nor a decent wakeful eye to keep it company. So, as I have said, we took the risk and slept; would have slept as soundly, I dare say, had the risk been twice as great.
 
We were astir at the earliest graying of the dawn, Richard and I, and were the laggards⁸ of the company at that, since the old hunter was already out and away, and the Indian had kindled⁹ a fire and was grinding more of the parched¹⁰ corn for the morning meal. Dick sat up in his leaf litter, yawning like a sleepy giant.
 
"Lord, Jack," said he; "if ever we win out of this coil with a full day to spare, I mean to sleep the clock hands twice around at a stretch, I promise you. 'Twas but a catch, this cat-nap; no more than enough to leave a bad taste in the mouth."
 
"Aye; but the taste may be washed out," said I. "I am for a dip in the river; what say you?"
 
He took me at the word, and we had an eye-opening plunge¹¹ in the spring-cold flood of the swift little river at the mouth of our ravine. 'Twas most marvelous refreshing¹²; and with appetites sharp set and whetted¹³ by the stripping and plunging¹⁴ we were back at the fire in time to give good day to Ephraim Yeates, at that moment returned with the hindquarters of a fine yearling buck¹⁵, fresh-killed, across his shoulders.
 
Seeing the deer's meat, we would think the old hunter's thrift¹⁶ of the dawn sufficiently¹⁷ accounted for; but when the cuts were a-broil, we were made to know that the buck was merely a lucky incident in the early morning scouting¹⁸.
 
Taking time by the forelock, the old borderer had swept a circle of reconnaissance around our halting place, "to get the p'ints of the compass," as he would say. His first discovery was that the ford¹⁹ we had found in the darkness served as the river crossing of an ancient and well-used Indian trace. Along this trace from the eastward²⁰ the powder train had come, no longer ago than mid-afternoon of yesterday; and arguing from this that the night camp of the band would be but a short march to the westward²¹, Yeates had pushed on to feel out the enemy's position.
 
For a mile or more beyond the ford he had trailed the convoy²² easily. The Indian trace or path, well-trampled by the numerous horses of the cavalcade²³, followed the up-stream windings²⁴ of the swift river straight into the eye of the western mountains. But in the eye itself, a rocky defile²⁶ where the slopes on each hand became frowning battlements to narrow valley and stream, the one to a darkling gorge²⁷, the other to a thundering torrent²⁸, the trail was lost as completely as if the powder convoy had vanished into thin air.
 
Here was a fresh complication, and one that called for instant action. We had counted upon a battle royal in any attempt to rescue the women; but that Falconnet, impeded²⁹ as he was by the slow movements of the powder cargo³⁰, could slip away, was a contingency³¹ for which we were wholly unprepared.
 
So, as you would guess, the hunter breakfast was hurriedly despatched; and by the time the sun was shoulder high over the eastern hills we had broken camp and crossed the river, and were pressing forward to the gorge of disappearance³².
 
On each hand the mountains rose precipitous, the one on the left swelling³³ unbroken to a bald and rounded summit, forest covered save for its tonsured³⁴ head high in air, while that on the right was steeper and lower, with a line of cliffs at the top. As we fared on, the valley narrowed to a mere chasm³⁵, with the river thundering along the base of the tonsured mountain, and the Indian path hugging the cliff on the right.
 
In the gloomiest depths of this defile we came upon the hunter's stumbling-block. A tributary³⁶ stream, issuing from a low cavern³⁷ in the right-hand cliff, crossed the Indian path and the chasm at a bound and plunged³⁸ noisily into the flood of the larger river. On the hither side of this barrier stream the trail of the powder convoy led plainly down into the water; and, so far as one might see, that was the end of it.
 
As we made sure, we left no stone unturned in the effort to solve the mystery. No horse, ridden or led, could have lived to cross the pouring torrent of the main river, or to wade³⁹ up or down its bed; and if the cavalcade had turned up the barrier stream its progress must have ended abruptly⁴⁰ against the sheer wall of the cliff at the entrance to the low-arched cavern whence the tributary came into being. But if Falconnet and his following had ridden neither up nor down the bed of the barrier stream, it seemed equally certain that no horse of the troop had crossed it. The Indian trace, which held straight on up the gorge and presently came out above into a high upland valley, was unmarked by any hoof⁴¹ print, new or old.
 
"Well, now; I'll be daddled if this here ain't about the beatin'est thing I ever chugged up ag'inst," was the old borderer's comment, when we had flogged our wits to small purpose in the search for some clue to the mystery. "What's your mind about it, hey, Chief?"
 
Uncanoola shook his head. "Heap plenty slick. No go up-stream, no go down, no cross over, no go back. Mebbe go up like smoke—w'at?"
 
The hunter shook his head and would by no means admit the alternative. "Ez I allow, that would ax for a merricle; and I reckon ez how when the good Lord sends a chariot o' fire after sech a clanjamfrey as this'n o' the hoss-captain's, it'll be mighty⁴² dad-blame' apt to go down 'stead of up."
 
We were standing⁴³ on the brink⁴⁴ of the barrier stream no more than a fisherman's cast from the black rock-mouth that spewed it up from its underground maw. While the hunter was speaking, the Catawba had lapsed⁴⁵ into statue-like listlessness, his gaze fixed⁴⁶ upon the eddying⁴⁷ flood which held the secret of the vanished cavalcade. Suddenly he came alive with a bound and made a quick dash into the water. What h............