The cave is a series of chambers connected by what appears to be an
overlapping of rooms. The voices of the boys sounded hollow and far away,
while the candles cast long, grotesque shadows on the walls. As the
column advanced, the leader shouted back now and then to "watch out to
the left" or "to be careful to the right" or "to mind your footing."
As the trail led off on the side of the Bottomless Pit they halted, and
the usual ceremony was gone through. They twisted several newspapers
together into a torch and, lighting them, dropped them into the pit. They
watched as the torch went down and down and down, lighting the way for a
fleeting instant into the very depths of the earth; past ugly, jagged
rocks, past flat shelves of limestone, past straight, smooth walls of
rock till, at last, it burned itself out, still going down into the vast,
mysterious crevice.

"It's a strange sight, to be sure," remarked Mr. Allen. "I have seen it a
good many times now, and I have no trouble in believing the old Indian
legend about it."

"I have never heard it," said Willis. "Won't you tell it to us? This
would be such a good time. Let's put out all the lights except mine; I'll
stick it here on this projection and we'll sit in the end of this big
room while you talk."

The crowd suited the action to the word. Mr. Allen pulled his hat far
down over his eyes, picked up several little white pebbles from the
ground and put them into his mouth to disguise his voice, then began:

"Eagle-Foot had been for many years the mighty medicine man of the
great Ute Indians, who were probably the strongest and most warlike of