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 shivers 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, an