It is not a little remarkable that the six dwellers in Gold Cave Camp should represent four of the five types into which scientists divide the human race, but this though curious in itself, is not nearly so much so as their being residents of this sparsely settled wilderness, and living, as it were, in caves in the depths of the earth.

Mr. Willett had been a merchant in Detroit, Michigan, where his only child, Sam, was born.

He had been very happy in his married life and very prosperous in his business; but, alas, for the stability of human affairs, his wife died. Following this awful calamity came a series of reverses in business which no human foresight could prevent. His property was swept away, and in his fortieth year he found himself a poor man, with a son to educate and care for and all life's battle to fight over again.

Mr. Willett had been educated as a mining engineer, and though he had never followed his profession he, very naturally, looked to it as a means of support when all his other resources were gone.

In the days of his great distress and perplexity he read of sudden fortunes being made in the newly-discovered gold fields of the San Juan country in Southwestern Colorado, and thither he determined to go.

Although still in the prime of life, Mr. Willett concentrated all the love of his brave heart on his son and resolved to devote his time and thought to his care and education.

Sam's maternal grandfather, Mr. Shirley, was a very rich, but a very morose and eccentric old man, who chose never to become reconciled to his daughter's marriage to Mr. Willett. But when Sam's mother died, the old gentleman offered to adopt his grandson and make him his sole heir, if the father would consent to renounce all claims to him.

In his son's interest Mr. Willett might have considered this proposal favorably had not Sam himself upset the scheme by saying stoutly:

"Father, do not ask me to leave you, for I feel it would be sending me to death. If you go to the West, I shall go with you. There are only two of us left, why should we be parted?"

Mr. Willett replied to this query by kissing his son, and so it was settled that they should go to the West together.

Ike was an orphan lad who, in some inexplicable way, had drifted up to Michigan from Kentucky. Mr. Willett found and cared for the boy, and he repaid this generosity by a fidelity and devotion worthy of all praise.

Mr. Willett could see no use for Ike in the West, but when the time for departure came, the black boy appeared at the depot with an old hunting bag, containing all his clothing, slung at his back, and a remarkable-looking shot-gun folded in his arms.

"Dar's no use a talkin' to me, boss," he said to Mr. Willett, when that gentleman expressed his surprise at the boy's appearance. "Ize bound to go 'long wid Mistah Sam. Oh, don't yeh feel skeat 'bout de cash foh de passage. Ize got ebery cent I ever earned stored away har; its more'n fifty dollar, an' I'll foot de bills till de las' red cent's gone."

In proof of this bold statement, Ike drew from the depths of his trousers' pockets a bag containing several pounds weight of bronze, nickel and silver coins.

Ike found an eloquent advocate in Sam; and so it came about that at the very last moment Mr. Willett decided to take the colored boy with him, though he could not be made to avail himself of the generous fellow's hoardings.

The three went to Denver, thence over the Rocky range to St. Luis Park, and over the Sierra Madre mountains to the San Juan country.

They had procured horses to ride on, and two pack mules to carry their supplies and mining tools.

While at Port Garland in the St. Luis Park, they met with Hank Tims and the Ute boy, Ulna, who was a nephew of the great chief Uray, whom the writer of this narrative knew very well and greatly admired.

Hank Tims and Ulna were themselves thinking about going into the San Juan country, and, as they were well acquainted with that region and appeared to take to Mr. Willett's party at once, they were readily induced to join his expedition.

It would be out of place in this brief but essential review to recount all the adventures that beset our friends till they reached the scene of their proposed labors.

After much wandering, they found Gold Cave Camp, but it was in the possession of a wild, dissolute fellow named Tom Edwards.

As Edwards was working his claim all alone and was eager to leave it, Mr. Willett bought him out at his own price, and at once made preparations to pan for such gold as might be found in the bed of the caÑon.

A few days after the commencement of operations, Wah Shin appeared in the camp.

He looked as if he had been blown in from the bleak hills, but he managed to explain in his broken English that he had lost himself coming up from Santa Fe, and that he was a first-class cook.

He asked for "a job," but even before Mr. Willett had made up his mind to hire him, he set to work to give an exhibition of his skill; and the result was so entirely satisfactory that he was retained on his own terms.

But it is much easier to explain the presence of these people than it is to account for the strange home in which they lived.

Learned men claim that long before the coming of the white men to this continent, long, indeed, before the coming of the Indians, that there was a strange race of people in that Western land, whom, for the want of a better name, they call "The Cave Dwellers."

But no matter how formed, or by whom they were first inhabited, these caves—they are quite common in that land—made ready and comfortable homes for the mining adventurers.

Those occupied by Mr. Willett and his associates, consisted of a series of eight apartments, all opening on the plateau and all connected by passage ways that must have been the work of human hands.

The apartments were circular in shape, and the largest, which was used as a kitchen and general store room, was about twenty feet in diameter and ten feet in height.

As before stated there was an ample spring of delicious cool water in this apartment, and the original hewers of the caves, no doubt, selected the place on this account.

After a hearty supper, Mr. Willett and Hank Tims lit their pipes and sat before the fire, for though the days are warm in this land the nights are unusually cool.

Drift wood, picked up from the crevices of the rocks in which it had been lodged by floods caused by the melting of snow in the mountains, constituted the fuel of the camp, and the great pile near the fire showed that it was to be had in abundance.

All had been working hard that day, so after a desultory talk about the great success that was meeting their search for gold, they lay down on their blanket cots in the other apartments and went to sleep—that is, all but Sam and his father.

Mr. Willett and his son slept together in the nearest room, but though they lay down side by side they did not go to sleep at once.

"Sam," said Mr. Willett in a troubled voice, "since you left this morning that fellow, Tom Edwards, has been here again."

"What did he want?" asked Sam.

"He appeared to be drunk, and he threatened to kill me if I did not give him more money."

"But you have paid him the price agreed on?"

"Yes."

"Then I should not heed him."

"Still, I am afraid he will cause me trouble, so, to-morrow, I will ride over to Hurley's Gulch and consult a lawyer, and as that is our nearest market and post-office, I will take Hank and Ulna along with two pack mules so as to carry back supplies."

"That is forty miles away, so that you will be gone several days. But if you must go, father, I will do the best I can while you are absent," said Sam, laying his hand soothingly on his father's broad breast.

"I know you will, my boy, but there is another matter I wished to speak with you about."

"What is that, father?"

"Why, this Tom Edwards brought me a letter from your grandfather's lawyer in Michigan. It tells me that the old man is dead, and that in his will he leaves all his property to you, but you are not to have a cent of it till you are twenty-one years of age——"

"Four years and a half, dear father!" cried the excited Sam.

"But," continued Mr. Willett, "the will further says that if you should die in the meantime that the property is to go to your grandfather's nephew, Frank Shirley."

"A bad, disreputable man to whom neither you nor mother would speak," said Sam.

"He is all that, I fear, and it troubles me to learn from Edwards that Frank Shirley has recently come into this land," said Mr. Willett.