The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1896-07-29

A SUBTERRANEAN METAMoRPHOSIS.
When Ringbrand opened his eyes he
found himself lying on his back in |
what appeared to be the bottom of 4
well; at least, that was his second i'm
preston. With the first CLEANS of re-
turning consciousness there was no
recollection of the events Immediately
preceding his fall. and for moment
he had a vague idea that he had
stumbled and hurt himself in the road,
and that the clouds had covered all but
the small patch of sky directly over
head where the stars were still visible.
Then memory came back, and he re-
called the details of the capture up to
the sudden blank following the plunge
into the hole between the powders. A
sharp twinge of pain bridged the in
teryal and reminded him that there
were two present and pressing sources
of discomfort in the gnarled log across
which he was lying and in the vice-like
pressure of the rope which still bound
his arms to his sides. To wriggle out
of the uncomfortable position was easy,
but loosening the rope was another mat
ter. The knot had been drawn tight
by the jerk of his fall, and it was an
hour or more before he succeeded in
working it around where it could be
reached; even when this was done, it
was only a beginning, and the first faint
streaks of dawn were filtering through
the aperture overhead when he finally
rose stiflly and swung his arms to start
the suspended circulation.
In "A little while it was light enough
to enable him to see his surroundings,
and he found that he was imprisoned i'll
a crevice-cave much like the one he had
explored two days before. 1t occurred
to him at once that it might be con-
tinuaton of the same cavern, or that
possibly he might be in the very
chamber into which he had tried to
penetrate; but this seemed unlikely, for
two reasons. One was that he could
not make the locality Of the McNabb
tunnel agree with the general direction
of his wanderings of the night previous;
and the other was even more convinc-
ing, for, while his cell terminated at one
extremity in a narrow tissure like the
one in which he had lost the pick and
the lamp, he could not find the missing
articles, though he lost no time in max
ing a careful search for them. In do
ing this. however, he stumbled upon
another discovery which was of much
more immediate importance: reaching
down into the crannies of the fissure,
his hand found pool of water, and he
drank gratefully, dipping up the COO
liquid by spoonfuls in his followed
palm.
After this, he gave an hour to minute
examination of the boundaries of hi:
prison, scrutinizing the walls and care
fully weighing every possible chance ot
escape. At the end of this preliminary
survey he sat down upon the log, which
proyed to be the trunk of small tret
hurled by some accident of wind o.
lightning through the opening above
and began to go over the events of th'
past few days, in the hope of finding
something to account for the mysteri
GUS attack and imprisonment. In thi
effort he racked his brain to little pur
pose, and, after repeatedly scouting tn
idea as absurd, he finally accepted tn
conclusion that the Bynums had il
some manner connected him with tn
fortunes of their enemies, and hat
taken prompt measures to deprive tn
Latimers of possible ally.
If that's the case" he unused, speak
ing aloud for the sake of the companion
shin of his own voice, what do the
mean to do with me? If they ha
wanted to kill me, they certainly had
all their own way last night; yer
small domestic cat would have made
better resistance than did. No, tha
isn'tit; they don'tmeanmurder; they'r
only trying to get me out OF the wa
for awhile. And the next thing is, fc
how long? Keeping in view the con
forting conclusion that they don
intend making away with me, the que
ton will answer itself in a few houl
at the most, for they haven't given n