“It’s a windy cavern,” she said. “Must be an entrance at each end.”
Calling on Attatak to pause, Marian struck a match. It flared up, then went out. A second one did the same. The third lighted the candle. There was just time for a hasty glance about. Gloomy brown walls lay to right and left of them, and the awful gloom of the cave was most alarming.
Glancing down at her feet, Marian uttered a low exclamation of surprise. Then, with such a definite and direct puff of wind as might come from human lips, the candle was snuffed out.
“Wha—what was it?” Attatak whispered. She was shaking so that Marian feared she would let the rifle go clattering to the rocky floor.
“Nothing,” Marian answered. “Really nothing at all. The ashes of a camp-fire, and I thought—thought,” she gulped, “thought I saw bones in the ashes!”
“Bones?” This time the rifle did clatter to the floor.
“Attatak,” Marian scolded; “Attatak. This is absurd!”
Groping in the dark for the rifle, she grasped a handful of ashes, then something hard and cold that was not the rifle.
“Ugh!” she groaned, struggling with all her might to keep from running away.
Again she tried for the rifle, this time successfully. She gave it to Attatak, with the admonition:
Stepping gingerly out of the ashes of the mysterious camp-fire, they again started forward.
The current of air now became less and less strong, and finally when Marian again tried the candle it burned with a flickering blaze.
A glance about told them they were now between narrow dark walls, that the ceiling was very high, and there was nothing beneath their feet but rock.
The yellow glow of light cheered them. If there were wolves they had made no sound; the gleam of their eyes had not been seen. If the spirits of the men who had built that long extinguished fire still haunted the place, the light would drive them away. Attatak assured Marian of that.
With one candle securely set in a rocky recess, and with another close at hand, Attatak was even willing to remain in the cave while Marian brought the reindeer in a little way and carried the articles necessary for a meal to the back of the cave.
“There is no moss on this barren mountain,” Marian sighed. “Our reindeer must go hungry to-night, but once we are off the mountain they shall have a grand feast.”