At last he came to the end of the rope, and felt it tighten and hold him back. Pushing the candle far in advance, he saw close at hand a circular cavern. Evidently the passage ended there. Ed determined to find out, and, reaching his arms around behind him, he untied the rope from his waist. Then, cautiously, he crawled forward toward the mysterious underground chamber.
When he finally crept into this large rock-bound room, Ed was surprised to find that he was able to stand erect. Even by raising himself on his toes and stretching his arms aloft he could not reach within several inches of the rocky ceiling. The place seemed to have no other occupant than himself; and, assured on that point, the lad set about to examine it carefully. Suddenly he exclaimed, for, as he turned, the light of his candle brought out some strange signs on the walls.
Chiseled, or nicked, into the solid rock were strange figures and hieroglyphics, or picture-writings. Ed began to trace them with the tips of his fingers in an endeavor to make them out. There were many drawings or tracings of arrows. Again there were rude sketches of hands and feet. Then there were figures presumably intended to represent different birds and animals. All these were separated one from another by a series of straight and wavy lines.
Most of the drawings were over to one side of the cavern. From what he had read, Ed believed them to be the work of long-departed tribes of Indians. No doubt they had made use of this cave, and to reach it had wormed their way, as he had just done, through the dark, narrow passageway. The thought of it thrilled him, and he gave a half-startled, involuntary glance about the dimly lighted chamber, as though fearful that some of the prehistoric picture-makers still lurked in its shadows.
What he saw caused him to cry out in horror. He staggered back against the wall, his eyes fixed on the gruesome object before him. There, on the ground and but a few feet away, sat a whitened human skeleton, its back against the rough wall.
For a moment the shock of his startling discovery completely unnerved him. He dropped the pole, and his candle went out. Even in the inky blackness which followed, the lad could see, all too vividly, a vision of that awful thing against the wall.