Part 1 — 2 A Big Cave is Discovered

The three of us talked over the matter of my descent and several safety precautions were formulated. About this time I decided I would be much happier about the whole thing if I could persuade one of the others to go below with me. At least one should remain on the surface at all times in case anything should go wrong.

"Sam," I said, "how about you coming down with me?"

He seemed to want to see what would happen to me first, I guess, so I then asked him if I went first would he follow. He said nothing.

"We'll only stay down for a short while," I assured him. "Perhaps a half hour or so."

Sam did not like the idea of going down in such a place. I told him it was easy, so I made arrangements to go down into this cavity and I did.

After getting down in there I could look back out and talk to him, so I finally persuaded him to come down, which he did. That left Brown on top.

We prowled around in there for some time, exploring the cavity, being, as I remember, 75 or 100 feet deep.

When we got ready to climb out of our descension, Sam said to me: "How are we going to get out of here?"

A portion of the author's original manuscript.

I told him that was easy. He said, "Go ahead."

"No," I said. "You go first and then I will come out. It is easy for me."

Well, Sam made a trial to go out, but made a complete failure, coming back down the rope in spite of me, and said, "I guess we are in here for good."

I told him I could go out in less than two minutes.

He said, "Let's see you." So, out I went.

Sam would not try any more, so I sent Mr. Brown to Carlsbad to get a rope long enough that I might make a rope ladder out of it and lower it down to Sam.

Carlsbad was 28 miles away and, of course, travel was very slow with horse and wagon. I knew Brown wouldn't get back before the next day.

I called to Sam: "I'm sending Brown to Carlsbad to get enough rope for a ship's ladder. You'll be able to climb that all right and get out."

"How long do I have to stay down here?" was Sam's retort.

"Until he gets back with the rope," I answered. "Probably tomorrow."

"You mean I have to stay down here all night?" Sam's voice quivered with fear.

"Unless you have some idea of how to get out," I replied.

I brought my wagons and mules over to the hole and proceeded to get ready to spend the night there. In spite of Sam's anxiety he said he was hungry so I got some food from one of the wagons and lowered it down to him on the end of a piece of fishline. He still had the lantern with him. I don't know how much he relished his meal, but of course he had no choice; so, by the light of the lantern he ate his supper, such as it was.

Above, I fared somewhat better.

Sam was quite scared, and he remained squarely below the opening, which, by the way, was not over two feet in diameter. He had no desire whatsoever to take the lantern and go exploring by himself. I really do believe he meant it when he said he thought he was in there for good.

I didn't sleep much that night, and I don't think Sam slept at all. No matter how much I kept reassuring him that as soon as Brown returned from Carlsbad we would get him out, he still thought he'd never see the light of day again.

Early the next morning, before the sun was up, Sam was calling me and asking if Brown had returned. "Not yet," I replied, "but he will, probably some time before noon."

I, too, was getting a bit apprehensive, for I felt just a bit guilty about Sam's predicament, since I was the one who had persuaded him to go below—against his desire to do so. In order to slightly calm my nervous tension I decided to take a short walk around the area in hopes of making the time pass more quickly, for I now knew that I, too, would welcome Brown and the rope he would be bringing.

I didn't stray too far from our campsite and was looking around when low in the sky I noticed a large number of dark objects. They seemed to disappear on a hillside.

Curiosity got the better of me. Knowing there was nothing I could do until Brown returned, I decided to investigate.

As I came closer I noticed the dark objects were bats—thousands of them. They were, indeed, disappearing into the side of a hill—into an opening that was much larger than the one which at the moment was holding Sam Evans a prisoner.

Having spent the night in search of food, they were now returning at sunrise to spend the day in what appeared to be a huge cave.

I was almost awe-struck at the sight of so many of these little flying mammals, for I had never before seen anything like it in my life.

As the brightness of the dawn increased the stream of bats subsided, and in a short while only a few remaining stragglers were entering the mouth of their home.

Where could all of these bats go, I wondered. There must be an exceptionally large cave inside to hold so many of them.

I never have cared much for bats, but I was interested in seeing where they lived. As I approached closer the whole side of the hill seemed to open up. There, certainly, was an opening to something even larger inside.

Well, of course, I wanted to go in, right then, but I knew it would not be safe to go into such a strange place alone. I had no idea of what I might find, or what trouble I might encounter.

By this time the sun was well off the horizon and I thought perhaps I had better get back to Sam and console him lest he think I had deserted him. I looked up the old dirt road towards Carlsbad to see if I could see any signs of Brown returning, but all was quiet.

I reasoned he would spend the night in Carlsbad and get an early morning start for the return trip, which would get him here a little before noon or so.

"Sam," I called out, "how is everything down there?"

"Get me out," he pleaded. "I've had all I want of this. I'm never going into a cave again."

I was quite excited about the larger cave I had just discovered and, of course, I wanted to tell Sam all about it, but when he said he never wanted to go into a cave again, I figured maybe he was in no mood to listen, let alone share my enthusiasm.

The best plan, it seemed, was to get his mind off his predicament so I tried to get him to talk about other things. He kept talking about how dark and cold it was down there in the hole, and when would Brown come back so that he could get out and why was he so foolish as to listen to me in the first place.

All this time I was eager to return to the new, big cave where all the bats were, yet I didn't want to leave Sam alone any more as I could see he was getting madder all the time. So the morning dragged on for him and for me as well.

Every few minutes he would call out to me and ask me to look and see if there was any sign of Brown. I had to keep saying no, but to say anything else would have raised false hopes, and I just couldn't do that.

About noon I noticed a cloud of dust on the horizon in the direction of Carlsbad, and as I watched it I could see it was getting bigger. That meant Brown was almost here. When I told Sam, he suddenly came to life again. I guess he felt like the condemned man who has just received a pardon.

Brown had gotten the rope, and we made a ship's ladder for Sam. We quickly lowered it through the small opening in the ground, and I never saw a man climb a rope ladder so fast before. Sam was mighty glad to see the light of day again.

Now that this ordeal was over I couldn't contain myself any more. I had to tell Sam and Brown of my discovery, and I wanted them to explore it with me. Certainly there was adventure ahead.