d 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 passing, 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 passing 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.

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