Many, many years ago, even before his own mother was born, those skeletons had trod this very chasm.  They had drunk from the same creek as he, they had clambered over the same rocks, they had camped perhaps where he was camping now!  They, too, in flesh and life, had strained their ears in the grim silence, they had watched the flickering light of their camp-fire on the walls of rock—­and they had found gold!

Just now, if Rod could have moved himself by magic, he would have been safely back in camp.  He listened.  From far back over the trail he had followed there came a lonely, plaintive, almost pleading cry.

“’Ello—­’ello—­’ello!”

It sounded like a distant human greeting, but Rod knew that it was the awakening night cry of what Wabi called the “man owl.”  It was weirdly human-like; and the echoes came softly, and more softly, until ghostly voices seemed to be whispering in the blackness about him.

“’Ello—­’ello—­’ello!”

The boy shivered and laid his rifle across his knees.  There was tremendous comfort in the rifle.  Rod fondled it with his fingers, and two or three times he felt as though he would almost like to talk to it.  Only those who have gone far into the silence and desolation of the unblazed wilderness know just how human a good rifle becomes to its owner.  It is a friend every hour of the night and day, faithful to its master’s desires, keeping starvation at bay and holding death for his enemies; a guaranty of safety at his bedside by night, a sharp-fanged watch-dog by day, never treacherous and never found wanting by the one who bestows upon it the care of a comrade and friend.  Thus had Rod come to look upon his rifle.  He rubbed the barrel now with his mittens; he polished the stock as he sat in his loneliness, and long afterward, though he had determined to remain awake during the night, he fell asleep with it clasped tightly in his hands.

It was an uneasy, troubled slumber in which the young adventurer’s visions and fears took a more realistic form.  He half sat, half lay, upon his cedar boughs; his head fell forward upon his breast, his feet were stretched out to the fire.  Now and then unintelligible sounds fell from his lips, and he would start suddenly as if about to awaken, but each time would sink back into his restless sleep, still clutching the gun.

The visions in his head began to take a more definite form.  Once more he was on the trail, and had come to the old cabin.  But this time he was alone.  The window of the cabin was wide open, but the door was tightly closed, just as the hunters had found it when they first came down into the dip.  He approached cautiously.  When very near the window he heard sounds—­strange sounds—­like the clicking of bones!

Step by step in his dream he approached the window and looked in.  And there he beheld a sight that froze him to the marrow.  Two huge skeletons were struggling in deadly embrace.  He could hear no sound but the click-click-click of their bones.  He saw the gleam of knives held between fleshless fingers, and he saw now that both were struggling for the possession of something that was upon the table.  Now one almost reached it, now the other, but neither gained possession.