“Well, hi, hillbilly.” Kurt’s grin shone as big and bright as the sun-gold letter L on his velour turtleneck. It was his same arrogant, sneering grin as always, except for the slight tint of embarrassment from having fallen. Matt nodded warily and said nothing. He didn’t trust his voice. His throat felt tight, and his chest ached with anxious pressure as he watched the big four-letter athlete casually slapping dust out of his Levis. He tailed me, Matt thought. He was hiding up there, watching. He saw me throw the rock, saw the crow fly up, heard me whoop and holler. When I started to move, he started to follow. And if he hadn’t slipped and fallen and been forced to show himself, I’d have led him right to the cave drop. Now how much does he know or suspect? Does he know enough about cave hunting to see the significance of that crow’s flight? Kurt rolled his thick shoulders as he grinned. “Seem a little on the surprised side to see your old schoolmate, hillbilly.” “It’s a crazy world all right. You never know.” Kurt kept grinning, but his voice had no humor in it. It was deadly serious, even sinister. “I know you’re not claiming any cave in this country. I know that.” “I’m going to find that cave all right,” Matt said. “Maybe. But you won’t ever claim it.”

What's more dangerous than scaling Mount Everest? For mountaineer Pete Athans, the answer lies in the ancient kingdom of Mustang, a remote part of the Asian nation of Nepal. Long-abandoned caves built high into steep cliffs contain amazing treasures—and pose incredible dangers. Reaching these "sky caves" safely takes guts, smarts, and luck. And then there's the question of what to do with a two-thousand-year-old human skull. . . From 2007 to 2012, Pete explored Mustang's sky caves with a team that included scientists, mountain climbers, and even two children. They found mummies, murals, manuscripts, and other priceless artifacts. Follow Pete on his dangerous trips to the sky caves and discover the secrets the caves revealed.

When his friend, Floyd Collins, becomes trapped in a cave in Kentucky in 1925, ten-year-old Arly places himself in great danger while trying to help with the rescue operation.

The Huautla in Mexico is the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere, possibly the world. Shafts reach skyscraper-depths, caverns are stadium-sized, and sudden floods can drown divers in an instant. With a two-decade obsession, William Stone and his 44-member team entered the sinkhole at Sotano de San Augustin. The first camp settled 2,328 feet below ground in a cavern where headlamps couldn't even illuminate the walls and ceiling. The second camp teetered precariously above an underground canyon where two subterranean rivers collided. But beyond that lay the unknown territory -- a flooded corridor that had blocked all previous comers, claimed a diver's life, and drove the rest of the team back. Except for William Stone and Barbara am Ende, who forged on for 18 more days, with no hope of rescue, to set the record for the deepest cave dive in the Western Hemisphere.

This book traces the evolution of the dog, from its origins about 15,000 years ago up to recent times. The timing of dog domestication receives attention, with comparisons between different genetics-based models and archaeological evidence. Allometric patterns between dogs and their ancestors, wolves, shed light on the nature of the morphological changes that dogs underwent. Dog burials highlight a unifying theme of the whole book: the development of a distinctive social bond between dogs and people; the book also explores why dogs and people relate so well to each other. Though cosmopolitan in overall scope, the greatest emphasis is on the New World, with an entire chapter devoted to dogs of the arctic regions, mostly in the New World. Discussion of several distinctive modern roles of dogs underscores the social bond between dogs and people.