hey might, and commenced to run
towards the hut. Even as he ran his faculties collected themselves, and
when he reached the corner of the hut he was almost his own man again.

Cumshaw eyed him curiously as he pulled up. "Startled you a bit, didn't
I?" he said.

"I thought something had happened to you when I heard you call," Bradby
answered, a trifle untruthfully.

"Don't you worry about me," Cumshaw said with affected unconcern, though
something in the man's nervous tone troubled him in a way he could not
define. "I've found the old chap who made the marks on the trees," he
ran on.

"Where?" Bradby demanded. But he looked towards the hut-door
apprehensively.

"He's in there," Cumshaw said, following the other's glance, "but there
isn't anything to worry about. He's as dead as a door-nail."

"Dead," Bradby repeated dazedly.

Cumshaw nodded. "This many a day," he said in semi-explanation. "But
come in and see what there is to be seen."

As if perfectly sure of his companion's acquiescence he turned and
walked into the hut. After a moment's hesitation Bradby followed. The
place smelt a trifle musty, and all the air was full of the subtle reek
of decay. It was rather dim in the hut, and at first Mr. Bradby could
see nothing but some indefinite shapes that might be anything at all.
Gradually his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, and in the
farthest corner he spied a rough bed of planks.

"That's him," said Mr. Cumshaw irreverently, and stirred something with
his foot.

Mr. Bradby looked a little closer this time. The something that Cumshaw
had stirred turned out to be the whitened skeleton of a man. The hideous
thing about it was that it was not stretched out on the plank bed; it
was propped up, as if the man had died while sitting. A rusted gun lay
in line with the thing's left thigh, and Bradby, following the muzzle
with a trained eye, saw that it was pointed at the man's head.

"Suicide," said Cumshaw. "Look at his head. He's blown out what little
brains he had."

He was right. The frontal bones of the skull were shattered and twisted
by the force of the charge; they gave the rest of the face a ghastly,
leering look which turned Bradby physically sick. The other man was
evidently troubled by no such qualms, for he loosened the gun from the
bony hand that had clung to it so desperately through all those years,
and tumbled the skeleton itself on to the plank bed.

"I'm going outside," said Mr. Bradb