Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-04-08

along the little ledge which led TO my
living tomb.
remember that I hoped they would
make short work of me, as / did not par
ticularly relish the thought of the innu.
merable things they might do to me II the
spirit prompted them.
I had not long to wait before a stealthy
sound apprsed me of their nearness,
and then n war-bonneted, paint-strealSed,
face was thrust cautiously around the
cliff and savage eyes looked into mine.
The fellow, instead of approaching,
merely stood and stared his eyes bulged
and his jaw dropped. And then another
savage face appeared. and n third and
fourth and fifth, craning their necks over
the shoulders of their fellows whom they
could not pass upon the narrow ledge.
Each face was the picture of awe and
fear
Suddenly a low but distinct moaning
sound issued from the recesses of the
cave behind me, and as ii reached the
ears of the Indians they turned and fled
I'm terror.
The sound which had frightened them
was not repeated but it had been sutti-
Cient as 1t was to start me speculating on
the thing that lurked in the shadows at
my back.
Fear is relative term and so | can
only measure my feelings in previous posi-
tions of danger and by those l have
out shame that If the sensations / en-
dured during the next few minutes were
fear, then may Heaven help the coward,
for cowardice is of a surety its own pun
ishment.
To be held paralyzed, with ones back
toward a horrible, unknown danger from
which the ferocious Apache warriors
turned in wild stampede
Several times I thought / heard faint
sounds behind me as of somebody NOV
ing cautiously but eventually even these
ceased, and | was left to the contemplation
of my position. 1 could but vaguely con-
lecture the cause of my paralysis and
my only hope lay in that it might pass on
as suddenly as it had fallen upon me.
Late in the afternoon my horse, which
had been standing with dragging rein be-
fore the cave, started slowly down the
trail, evidently in search of food and
water, and / was left alone with my un-
known companion and the dead body of
my friend, which lay just within my range
of vision upon the ledge where l had
placed It in the early morning,
From then until possibly midnight all
was silence, the silence of the dead
Then suddenly the awful moan of the
morning broke upon my startled ears, and
there came again from the black shadows
the sound of a moving thing and faint
rustlng as of dead leaves The shock
TO my already overstrained nervous sys-
TEN was terrible in the extreme, and with
a superhuman effort 1 strove TO break
my awful bonds.
1t was an effort of the mind of the
will, of the nerves; not muscular, for /
could not move even so much as my little
finger, but none the less mighty for all
that.
Something gaye-there was a momentary
feeling of nausea, a sharp click as of the
swapping of a steel wire, and l stood with
my back against the wall of the cave fac
ing my unknown foe.
The moonlight flooded the cave-and
there before me lay my own body as IL had
been lying all those hours, with the eyes
staring toward the open ledge and the
hands resting Imply upon the ground,
/ looked first at my lifeless clay there
upon the floor of the cave, and then down
at myself in utter bewlderment for there
/ lay clothed, and yet here 1 stood. but
naked as at the minute of my birth.
The transition had been so sudden and
SO unexpected that IL left me for a mo-
ment forgetful OF aught else than my
strange metamorphosis.
MY first thought was Is this then
death? Have 1, indeed, passed over for
ever into that other life?
But l could not well believe this, as /
could feel my heart pounding against my
ribs from the eXertion of my efforts TO re-
lease myself from the anesthesia which
had held me. My breath was coming in
quick short gasps 4; cold sweat stood out
from every pore Of my body and the an
cient experiment Of pinehing revealed the
fact that 1 was anything other than
wrath.
Again was I suddenly recalled TO my Inn
mediate surroundings BY a repetition OF
the weird moan from the depths Of the
cave