*****
You've hiked through Snake Canyon once before while visiting your Uncle Howard at Red Creek Ranch, but you never noticed any cave entrance.  It looks as though a recent rock slide has uncovered it.

Though the late afternoon sun is striking the opening of the cave, the interior remains in total darkness.  You step inside a few feet, trying to get an idea of how big it is.  As your eyes become used to the dark, you see what looks like a tunnel ahead, dimly lit by some kind of phosphorescent material on its walls.  The tunnel walls are smooth, as if they were shaped by running water.  After twenty feet or so, the tunnel curves.  You wonder where it leads.  You venture in a bit further, but you feel nervous being alone in such a strange place.  You turn and hurry out.

A thunderstorm may be coming, judging by how dark it looks outside.  Suddenly you realize the sun has long since set, and the landscape is lit only by the pale light of the full moon.  You must have fallen asleep and woken up hours later.  But then you remember something even more strange.  Just last evening, the moon was only a slim crescent in the sky.

You wonder how long you've been in the cave.  You are not hungry.  You don't feel you have been sleeping.  you wonder whether to try to walk back home by moonlight or whether to wait for dawn, rather than risk losing your footing on the steep and rocky trail.

[If you decide to start back home, turn to page 4.]

As you start walking back toward the ranch, you notice the trail seems very different than you remember it, though of course moonlight can play tricks on your eyes.  But you suddenly realize you are not walking on the trail at all, but on what seems to be a dried-up river bed.  You hurry back to the cave entrance.  You look around you and realize the whole landscape has changed.  While you were in the cave, torrents of water have washed out the trail; yet there is not so much as a puddle left.  You shiver.  It is cold, much colder than it should be at this time of year.  You take a jacket out of your backpack and put it on, but you are still freezing.

At least the world about you seems brighter.  It's getting light in the east.  The sun will soon be up.  You look at your watch.  It has run down, though you wound it only a few hours ago.  Nothing seems to make sense anymore.

You know you should get back to the ranch as quickly as possible, yet somehow you feel the only way to change things back to the way there were is to re-enter the cave.

[If you go back into the cave, turn to page 10.]

You walk into the interior of the strange cavern, then wait while your eyes become accustomed to the dim, amber light.  Gradually you can make out the two tunnels.  One curves downward to the right; the other leads upward to the left.

It occurs to you that the one leading down may go to the past and the one leading up may go to the future.

[If you take the tunnel leading to the left, turn to page 20.]

The tunnel to the left winds around like a spiral, passing several more tunnels.  You turn down one of them, then climb steeply.  In a few moments you climb through a hole and emerge in a desert.  The weather is extremely hot -- certainly over 100 degrees, but the sun is just about to set, so it should be getting cooler.  In the distance is a range of mountains, which look extremely high, yet are bare of snow.  You have no idea whether you are in the past, the future, or the present.  Then you see something that fascinates and disturbs you.  The sand seems to be fused into yellowish glass as if heated in a furnace.  As you examine the sand more closely, you feel the air getting even hotter.  Suddenly you realize the sun is not setting, but rising!  The noontime temperature must be more than life can stand.  As the sun rises higher, you feel a blistering wave of heat.  The light is almost blinding.  Could it be that you are witnessing the end of the world?

[Turn to page 93.]

You dive down into the tunnel, hoping you can make it back to an earlier time. Gratefully, you feel cool, damp air coming up from the cave. You are curious to try the next tunnel you come to, thinking that it may show the state of the world just before it began to burn up from the intensifying heat of the dying sun, or that it might show what happened afterward! But you suspect that a tunnel further on might be more likely to lead you back to your own time.

[If you take a tunnel further along the way, turn to page 32.]

After following the passageway for a considerable distance, you enter a very large tunnel that seems as likely as any to lead you back to your own time.  you continue along and soon notice that the floor of the tunnel is becoming sandier.  Perhaps you are coming to a beach.  Then the sand gives way under your feet; you slide through sand and rising dust.  you cannot stop yourself -- it is too steep; then there is nothing under your feet, and a moment later you land in deep water.  you swim to the surface and catch your breath.  you are in an underwater grotto, which seems completely sealed off except for a portion of its roof that is open to the blue sky.  You swim to a large, smooth rock sloping into the water.

The sand is white, and the water transparent.  The rocks are made of crystalline material of the most delicate shades of blue.  For a moment you are overwhelmed by the beauty of the scene before you, but you soon begin to wonder whether you can escape from it.  There is no way of climbing out through the opening in the roof.

You dive down in hopes of finding an underwater passageway that might lead to freedom, and you find one!  But could you swim through it before running out of air?

[If you decide to wait, turn to page 64.]

Swimming through the underwater tunnel may be the only way to get out of the grotto, but the risk of drowning seems too great. You explore the rocks in the grotto and think about how you might possibly get up through the roof.

Suddenly a voice calls, "Hello." You whirl around and notice for the first time, huddled in the corner, a woman with sparking blue eyes and a mysterious smile. She is sitting cross-legged, propped against a rock which is shaped in a way that gives her a comfortable seat. In her hands she is holding a flute, and as you stare in amazement she plays an unfamiliar melody with a sweetness and purity of tone such as you have never heard.

"Hello," you reply. "Tell me -- who are you and how can we get out of here?"

"Sit down," she says, "and relax. You have all the time in the world."

"What do you mean?" you reply. "I am trapped. I slid down from the Cave of Time and I want to get out.

"Believe me," the woman says, "there's no way to get out; but do not be concerned. It is a beautiful place and you can be very happy here."

"But we'll starve. How long have you been here?" you exclaim.

"Forever and not at all," she replies, "for this is the part of the cave which leads neither to the past nor to the future. Here, time does not exist, so, of course, you will never be hungry or bored, and, although you can never get out, you will be here for no time at all."

[Turn to page 102.]

You sit down and rest your chin in your hands, unable to believe the fate that has befallen you. To live forever in a timeless world seems worse than death.

"Well, to tell the truth, there is a way to get back to your own time," the woman finally says, "but, if you follow it, you will not be able to live forever."

"I don't care," you say. "Show me the way."

"Very well," she says, shaking her head in disbelief. "Dive under the rock ledge beneath me and swim through the tunnel you will find there. You will come up in your own time. Don't worry, it's only a few yards, you can make it."

You take a last look around, wave good-bye and dive. A few seconds later you surface in a pond just inside the entrance of the Cave of Time. You swim to shore and run out through the cave entrance into the open air, almost crashing into your Uncle Howard, who has come looking for you.

"You're late for dinner," he says. "We wondered what happened to you. You ought to keep better track of time."

The End