The Wolf Hunters Part 8

His eyes traveled nearer. Outside Wabi and Mukoki heard a startled, partly suppressed cry. The boy's hands gripped the sides of the window.

Fascinated, he stared down upon an object almost within arm's reach of him.

There, leaning against the cabin wall, was what half a century or more ago had been a living man! Now it was a mere skeleton, a grotesque, terrible-looking object, its empty eye-sockets gleaming dully with the light from the window, its grinning mouth, distorted into ghostly life by the pallid mixture of light and gloom, turned full up at him!

Rod fell back, trembling and white.

"I only saw one," he gasped, remembering Mukoki's excited estimate.

Wabi, who had regained his composure, laughed as he struck him two or three playful blows on the back. Mukoki only grunted.

"You didn't look long enough, Rod!" he cried banteringly. "He got on your nerves too quick. I don't blame you, though. By George, I'll bet the s.h.i.+vers went up Muky's back when he first saw 'em! I'm going in to open the door."

Without trepidation the young Indian crawled through the window. Rod, whose nervousness was quickly dispelled, made haste to follow him, while Mukoki again threw his weight against the door. A few blows of Wabi's belt-ax and the door shot inward so suddenly that the old Indian went sprawling after it upon all fours.

A flood of light filled the interior of the cabin. Instinctively Rod's eyes sought the skeleton against the wall. It was leaning as if, many years before, a man had died there in a posture of sleep. Quite near this ghastly tenant of the cabin, stretched at full length upon the log floor, was a second skeleton, and near the overturned chair was a small cluttered heap of bones which were evidently those of some animal. Rod and Wabi drew nearer the skeleton against the wall and were bent upon making a closer examination when an exclamation from Mukoki attracted their attention to the old pathfinder. He was upon his knees beside the second skeleton, and as the boys approached he lifted eyes to them that were filled with unbounded amazement, at the same time pointing a long forefinger to come object among the bones.

"Knife--fight--heem killed!"

Plunged to the hilt in what had once been the breast of a living being, the boys saw a long, heavy-bladed knife, its handle rotting with age, its edges eaten by rust--but still erect, held there by the murderous road its owner had cleft for it through the flesh and bone of his victim.

Rod, who had fallen upon his knees, gazed up blankly; his jaw dropped, and he asked the first question that popped into his head.

"Who--did it?"

Mukoki chuckled, almost gleefully, and nodded toward the gruesome thing reclining against the wall.

"Heem!"

Moved by a common instinct the three drew near the other skeleton. One of its long arms was resting across what had once been a pail, but which, long since, had sunk into total collapse between its hoops. The finger-bones of this arm were still tightly shut, clutching between them a roll of something that looked like birch-bark. The remaining arm had fallen close to the skeleton's side, and it was on this side that Mukoki's critical eyes searched most carefully, his curiosity being almost immediately satisfied by the discovery of a short, slant-wise cut in one of the ribs.

"This un die here!" he explained. "Git um stuck knife in ribs. Bad way die! Much hurt--no die quick, sometime. Ver' bad way git stuck!"

"Ugh!" shuddered Rod. "This cabin hasn't had any fresh air in it for a century, I'll bet. Let's get out!"

Mukoki, in pa.s.sing, picked up a skull from the heap of bones near the chair.

"Dog!" he grunted. "Door lock'--window shut--men fight--both kill. Dog starve!"

As the three retraced their steps to the spot where Wolf was guarding the toboggan, Rod's imaginative mind quickly painted a picture of the terrible tragedy that had occurred long ago in the old cabin. To Mukoki and Wabigoon the discovery of the skeletons was simply an incident in a long life of wilderness adventure--something of pa.s.sing interest, but of small importance. To Rod it was the most tragic event that had ever come into his city-bound existence, with the exception of the thrilling conflict at Wabinosh House. He reconstructed that deadly hour in the cabin; saw the men in fierce altercation, saw them struggling, and almost heard the fatal blows as they were struck--the blows that slew one with the suddenness of a lightning bolt and sent the other, triumphant but dying, to breathe his last moments with his back propped against the wall. And the dog! What part had he taken? And after that--long days of maddening loneliness, days of starvation and of thirst, until he, too, doubled himself up on the floor and died. It was a terrible, a thrilling picture that burned in Roderick's brain. But why had they quarreled? What cause had there been for that sanguinary night duel? Instinctively Rod accepted it as having occurred at night, for the door had been locked, the window barred. Just then he would have given a good deal to have had the mystery solved.

At the top of the hill Rod awoke to present realities. Wabi, who had harnessed himself to the toboggan, was in high spirits.

"That cabin is a dandy!" he exclaimed as Rod joined him. "It would have taken us at least two weeks to build as good a one. Isn't it luck?"

"We're going to live in it?" inquired his companion.

"Live in it! I should say we were. It is three times as big as the shack we had planned to build. I can't understand why two men like those fellows should have put up such a large cabin. What do you think, Mukoki?"

Mukoki shook his head. Evidently the mystery of the whole thing, beyond the fact that the tenants of the cabin had killed themselves in battle, was beyond his comprehension.

The winter outfit was soon in a heap beside the cabin door.

"Now for cleaning up," announced Wabi cheerfully. "Muky, you lend me a hand with the bones, will you? Rod can nose around and fetch out anything he likes."

This a.s.signment just suited Rod's curiosity. He was now worked up to a feverish pitch of expectancy. Might he not discover some clue that would lead to a solution of the mystery?

One question alone seemed to ring incessantly in his head. Why had they fought? _Why had they fought?_

He even found himself repeating this under his breath as he began rummaging about. He kicked over the old chair, which was made of saplings nailed together, scrutinized a heap of rubbish that crumbled to dust under his touch, and gave a little cry of exultation when he found two guns leaning in a corner of the cabin. Their stocks were decaying; their locks were encased with rust, their barrels, too, were thick with the acc.u.mulated rust of years. Carefully, almost tenderly, he took one of these relics of a past age in his hands. It was of ancient pattern, almost as long as he was tall.

"Hudson Bay gun--the kind they had before my father was born!" said Wabi.

With bated breath and eagerly beating heart Rod pursued his search. On one of the walls he found the remains of what had once been garments--part of a hat, that fell in a thousand pieces when he touched it; the dust-rags of a coat and other things that he could not name. On the table there were rusty pans, a tin pail, an iron kettle, and the remains of old knives, forks and spoons. On one end of this table there was an unusual-looking object, and he touched it. Unlike the other rags it did not crumble, and when he lifted it he found that it was a small bag, made of buckskin, tied at the end--and heavy! With trembling fingers he tore away the rotted string and out upon the table there rattled a handful of greenish-black, pebbly looking objects.

Rod gave a sharp quick cry for the others.

Wabi and Mukoki had just come through the door after bearing out one of their gruesome loads, and the young Indian hurried to his side. He weighed one of the pieces in the palm of his hand.

"It's lead, or--"

"Gold!" breathed Rod.

He could hear his own heart thumping as Wabi jumped back to the light of the door, his sheath-knife in his hand. For an instant the keen blade sank into the age-discolored object, and before Rod could see into the crease that it made Wabi's voice rose in an excited cry.

"It's a gold nugget!"

"And _that's_ why they fought!" exclaimed Rod exultantly.

He had hoped--and he had discovered the reason. For a few moments this was of more importance to him than the fact that he had found gold. Wabi and Mukoki were now in a panic of excitement. The buckskin bag was turned inside out; the table was cleared of every other object; every nook and cranny was searched with new enthusiasm. The searchers hardly spoke. Each was intent upon finding--finding--finding. Thus does gold--virgin gold--stir up the sparks of that latent, feverish fire which is in every man's soul. Again Rod joined in the search. Every rag, every pile of dust, every bit of unrecognizable debris was torn, sifted and scattered. At the end of an hour the three paused, hopelessly baffled, even keenly disappointed for the time.

"I guess that's all there is," said Wabi.

It was the longest sentence that he had spoken for half an hour.

"There is only one thing to do, boys. We'll clean out everything there is in the cabin, and to-morrow we'll tear up the floor. You can't tell what there might be under it, and we've got to have a new floor anyway.

It is getting dusk, and if we have this place fit to sleep in to-night we have got to hustle."

No time was lost in getting the debris of the cabin outside, and by the time darkness had fallen a ma.s.s of balsam boughs had been spread upon the log floor just inside the door, blankets were out, packs and supplies stowed away in one corner, and everything "comfortable and s.h.i.+pshape," as Rod expressed it. A huge fire was built a few feet away from the open door and the light and heat from this made the interior of the cabin quite light and warm, and, with the a.s.sistance of a couple of candles, more home-like than any camp they had slept in thus far.

Mukoki's supper was a veritable feast--broiled caribou, cold beans that the old Indian had cooked at their last camp, meal cakes and hot coffee.

The three happy hunters ate of it as though they had not tasted food for a week.

The day, though a hard one, had been fraught with too much excitement for them to retire to their blankets immediately after this meal, as they had usually done in other camps. They realized, too, that they had reached the end of their journey and that their hardest work was over.

There was no long jaunt ahead of them to-morrow. Their new life--the happiest life in the world to them--had already begun. Their camp was established, they were ready for their winter's sport, and from this moment on they felt that their evenings were their own to do with as they pleased.

So for many hours that night Rod, Mukoki and Wabigoon sat up and talked and kept the fire roaring before the door. Twenty times they went over the tragedy of the old cabin; twenty times they weighed the half-pound of precious little lumps in the palms of their hands, and bit by bit they built up that life romance of the days of long ago, when all this wilderness was still an unopened book to the white man. And that story seemed very clear to them now. These men had been prospectors. They had discovered gold. Afterward they had quarreled, probably over some division of it--perhaps over the owners.h.i.+p of the very nuggets they had found; and then, in the heat of their anger, had followed the knife battle.

But where had they discovered the gold? That was the question of supreme interest to the hunters, and they debated it until midnight. There were no mining tools in the camp; no pick, shovel or pan. Then it occurred to them that the builders of the cabin had been hunters, had discovered gold by accident and had collected that in the buckskin bag without the use of a pan.

There was little sleep in the camp that night, and with the first light of day the three were at work again. Immediately after breakfast the task of tearing up the old and decayed floor began. One by one the split saplings were pried up and carried out for firewood, until the earth floor lay bare. Every foot of it was now eagerly turned over with a shovel which had been brought in the equipment; the base-logs were undermined, and filled in again; the moss that had been packed in the c.h.i.n.ks between the cabin timbers was dug out, and by noon there was not a square inch of the interior of the camp that had not been searched.