, you and Carteret
unpack the sledge. And do you build us a roaring fire, Pemecan."

I went into another room for a moment--it had been my own in times
past--and when I returned the Indian had already started a cheerful
blaze. As I walked toward the fireplace, intending to warm my hands, a
loose slab of stone that was set in at the right of it was dislodged by
the shaking of the floor. It toppled over with a crash, breaking into
several fragments, and behind it, on the weatherworn stratum of plaster,
I saw a number of hieroglyphics. On pulling down some more plaster I
found more lines of them, and they were doubtless an inscription of some
sort. The odd-looking characters were carved deeply into the wall, and I
judged that they had been made years before.

"How strange!" cried Flora, coming to my side.

The rest also drew near, scrutinizing the mysterious discovery with
eager eyes and exclamations of surprise.

"It looks like a cryptogram," said Captain Rudstone, and his voice
seemed to tremble and grow hoarse as he spoke. "What do you make of it,
Carew?"

"Nothing," said I. "You know as much as myself--I never saw it before."

"Was it put there in your father's time?"

"Perhaps," I answered, "but I am inclined to think that it belongs to a
much earlier date."

The captain shook his head slowly. He stared at the hieroglyphics with a
thoughtful face, with his brow knitted into tiny wrinkles over his
half-closed eyes.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A CRY IN THE NIGHT.

We all, more or less, shared Captain Rudstone's curiosity. For a minute
we gazed in silence at the strange marks--the company men stolidly, the
two voyageurs with disdainful shrugs of the shoulders. Pemecan touched
the spot with something like awe, and Christopher Burley followed his
example.

"This is a very odd thing," he muttered. "I wish I could take the
plaster just as it is back to London with me."

"I've seen nothing like it," declared Luke Hutter, "and I've lived in
the wilderness, man and boy, for nigh onto fifty years."

Naturally Fort Beaver having been my home, the rest looked to me to
throw some light on the mystery of the cryptogram--if such it was; but I
was no wiser than they, and they questioned me in vain. I remembered the
fireplace as being always in sound condition, and as my father had never
spoken of the matter, I judged that the marks had been cut years before
his time-