*****
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 walk outside the cave again, turn to page 21.]

You turn and walk back out of the cave.  It should be dawn by now, but, as you grope your way toward the entrance, you can't see any light coming into the cave.  You press against the walls, feeling for an opening.  Your hands pass across something cold, wet, and hard.  Ice!  The entrance is sealed by it.  Blocks of ice protrude into the cave.

You step back, feeling confused and helpless.  You wish it were just a dream.  You retrace your steps a way, trying to think clearly.  You know that your only chance to get out of the cave is to follow one of the two branches before you.

[If you follow the right branch, turn to page 33.]

You make your way along in the dim light.  Ahead of you is a ladder.  You take hold of it and begin to climb.  Suddenly you hear a terrible grinding, crunching noise.  The ladder shudders.  You hold on tight for a few minutes after the noise subsides.  Then you continue up the ladder and a moment later pull yourself out into the crisp, cold night air.  Lights are glowing all around you.  In front of you is a large slab of ice.  You feel a strange motion as if the ground is moving.  When you touch the ground with your hand, you feel wood.  Not far from you is a railing.  Beyond it -- the sea!  Above you are stars more numerous and brilliant than you have seen before.  You realize you are on the deck of a very large ship.

Not far from you, hanging on a hook, is an enormous life preserver.  Stenciled on it in black letters is the word TITANIC.  you know there was only one ship that ever bore than name, that it made only one voyage, that it struck a huge iceberg, and that three hours later it was resting on the bottom of the Atlantic.

As you walk along the deck of the Titanic, you realize that below the water line thousands of gallons of water per minute are pouring into the forward compartments.  The people don't seem to

[Go on to the next page.]

realize what's happening.  The sea is as calm as glass.  The band on the deck below you is playing a waltz.  Several men in long black coats and women in fur jackets are walking close by.

"Goodness," one woman says.  "I can't understand why the captain has stopped the ship.  If we are late docking in New York, I'm going to lodge a complaint with the owners."

[If you go back down the ladder and try to return to the cave, turn to page 79.]

You have no wish to risk sinking with the Titanic, so you climb back down the ladder into the hold of the ship -- hoping that somehow you will be able to find your way back to the cave. In your haste, you lose your grip and fall. You reach out, but too late. You land so hard you are knocked out. When you awaken, you are in one of the passageways of the cave.

[If you decide to check out the outer entrance to the cave again, turn to page 88.]

You walk back through the cavern, wondering if the entrance will still be blocked by ice. This time, though, you are greeted by a warm breeze. Sunlight is shining on the ground near the entrance, and you walk outside.

Squinting your eyes in the bright light, you see a world totally different from the one you know. You are on a hillside. For miles and miles you can see grassy plains speckled with lakes. Nearby is a forest of towering ferns, swaying in the wind. The world before you seems strangely quiet, except for the faint rumbling of distant thunder. Suddenly, the thunder seems much closer -- and louder. The thundering sound is moving through the ferns. You run up the hill looking for a place to hide. A huge shadow passes on the ground. Above you, soaring through the air, is a creature larger than any bird you have seen.

Now it is clear what has been happening. The cave is a crack in the universe -- a place outside space-time. Once inside its tunnels you could find yourself at any place, any time. If you enter again you might be sent to a place from which you could never escape. Yet that is your only hope for returning to your own place and time.

[If you remain outside, turn to page 91.]

Reasoning that you can always find your way back into the cave when you want to, you decide to explore the world in which you have found yourself.

You make your way along a rock ledge overlooking the plains and lakes, taking care to keep your bearings so you can find your way back to the cave.

By now you are getting very hungry. You know that you are in the age of reptiles -- at least 100 million years ago -- and that mammals may not yet have appeared on earth. There will be no rabbits or deer to hunt, though the lakes may contain fish. You wonder how dinosaur eggs taste.

You follow a wide path through the fern trees. When you round the first bend, you find yourself face to face with the horrible Triceratops, a great gray monster almost hidden behind its shields and horns. It looks at you curiously with dull brown eyes. You turn, run, and crash into a tree trunk -- one that wasn't there before!

The bark feels like leather. You look up to see how high it is -- into the jaws of Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The End