so high above the ground. If he was only
shelterin', why didn't he walk out again when the storm was through?"

"I'm supposin' it was a snowstorm, or else a fierce blizzard," Kiddie
went on. "As the snow got deeper an' deeper, it would block up the
hole that he entered by, and he'd work his way higher an' higher to get
at the purer air. Maybe he'd wait till the storm was over, and then
the snow might have been so deep that he'd think it easier to climb
higher still and escape that way rather than attempt to go back feet
foremost and burrow a passage through the drift. And then he got so
wedged in that there was no movin' and no means of escape either way,
and he just had to stay there and die a lingerin' death."

"Yes," said Rube. "I guess that's th' explanation of the whole thing.
Wonder where he come from. Pity thar's none of his clothes left: no
gun, or knife, or watch, or pocket-book ter tell us who he was, an' all
that."

"He wouldn't be carryin' a gun or a watch," observed Kiddie, "and
Injuns ain't in the habit of keepin' pocket diaries."

"Injuns?" repeated Rube questioningly. "D'you reckon this yer chap was
a Injun, then?"

"Certainly," Kiddie answered, "an Injun, young an' tall."

"H'm!" murmured Rube, not satisfied. "You just guessin' all that,
Kiddie, or have you figured it out?"

"I've figured it out," returned Kiddie. "Look at his thigh bone--the
only bone that's left intact. It's longer'n mine, an' I ain't a pigmy.
Must have been taller'n I am. Look at the teeth: they're not an old
man's teeth. There ain't a speck of decay on 'em, they're not worn
down any, an' they're well separate one from another, not crushed
together like an old man's. Must sure have been young."

"Yes," said Rube, "but all that don't prove he was Injun. White men
c'n be tall; white men c'n have good teeth. How d'you make out he was
Injun?"

"By the shape of his skull for one thing," explained Kiddie--"the
square jaw, the high cheek bones, the slopin' forehead. But more'n all
I argue he was Injun because I calculate he was fixed tight in the
tree, and was well on the way to bein' a naked skeleton long before any
white man opened his eyes on the Rocky Mountains--yes, even perhaps
before the Pilgrim Fathers landed in New England. That's why he didn't
carry a gun. He didn't know there was such a thing as a gun, or a
watch either."

"Git!" exclaimed Rube incredulously. "D'you expect me ter swaller a
tall yar