pled and huddled heap, only
the back of the skull showing, like the polished pate of a bald man. These
things they saw first, and then two others: on the table were a heap of
age-blackened and dusty sacks, and out of the back of the crumbling thing
that guarded them stuck the long buckhorn hilt of a knife.

"They must ha' died fighting," said MacDonald. "An' there, Johnny, is their
gold!"

White as death Joanne stood in the door and watched them. MacDonald and
Aldous went to the sacks. They were of buckskin. The years had not aged
them. When Aldous took one in his hands he found that it was heavier than
lead. With his knife MacDonald cut a slit in one of them, and the sun that
came through the window flashed in a little golden stream that ran from the
bag.

"We'll take them out and put 'em in a pannier," said MacDonald. "The others
won't be far behind us, Johnny."

Between them they carried out the seven sacks of gold. It was a load for
their arms. They put it in one of the panniers, and then MacDonald nodded
toward the cabin next the one that had been his own.

"I wouldn't go in there, Joanne," he said.

"I'm going," she whispered again.

"It was _their_ cabin--the man an' his wife," persisted old Donald. "An'
the men was beasts, Joanne! I don't know what happened in there--but I
guess."

"I'm going," she said again.

MacDonald pulled down the barricade from the window--a window that also
faced the south and west, and this time he had to thrust against the door
with his shoulder. They entered, and now a cry came from Joanne's lips--a
cry that had in it horror, disbelief, a woman's wrath. Against the wall was
a pile of something, and on that pile was the searching first light of day
that had fallen upon it for nearly half a century. The pile was a man
crumpled down; across it, her skeleton arms thrown about it protectingly,
was a woman. This time Aldous did not go forward. MacDonald was alone, and
Aldous took Joanne from the cabin, and held her while she swayed in his
arms. Donald came out a little later, and there was a curious look of
exultation and triumph in his face.

"She killed herself," he said. "That was her husband. I know him. I gave
him the rock-nails he put in the soles of his boots--and the nails are
still there."

He went alone into the remaining two cabins, while Aldous stood with
Joanne. He did not stay long. From the fourth cabin he brought an armful of
the little brown sacks. He returned