“I only saw one,” he gasped, remembering Mukoki’s excited estimate.

Wabi, who had regained his composure, laughed as he struck him two or three playful blows on the back.  Mukoki only grunted.

“You didn’t look long enough, Rod!” he cried banteringly.  “He got on your nerves too quick.  I don’t blame you, though.  By George, I’ll bet the shivers went up Muky’s back when he first saw ’em!  I’m going in to open the door.”

Without trepidation the young Indian crawled through the window.  Rod, whose nervousness was quickly dispelled, made haste to follow him, while Mukoki again threw his weight against the door.  A few blows of Wabi’s belt-ax and the door shot inward so suddenly that the old Indian went sprawling after it upon all fours.

A flood of light filled the interior of the cabin.  Instinctively Rod’s eyes sought the skeleton against the wall.  It was leaning as if, many years before, a man had died there in a posture of sleep.  Quite near this ghastly tenant of the cabin, stretched at full length upon the log floor, was a second skeleton, and near the overturned chair was a small cluttered heap of bones which were evidently those of some animal.  Rod and Wabi drew nearer the skeleton against the wall and were bent upon making a closer examination when an exclamation from Mukoki attracted their attention to the old pathfinder.  He was upon his knees beside the second skeleton, and as the boys approached he lifted eyes to them that were filled with unbounded amazement, at the same time pointing a long forefinger to come object among the bones.

“Knife—­fight—­heem killed!”

Plunged to the hilt in what had once been the breast of a living being, the boys saw a long, heavy-bladed knife, its handle rotting with age, its edges eaten by rust—­but still erect, held there by the murderous road its owner had cleft for it through the flesh and bone of his victim.

Rod, who had fallen upon his knees, gazed up blankly; his jaw dropped, and he asked the first question that popped into his head.

“Who—­did it?”

Mukoki chuckled, almost gleefully, and 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!”