The dog had been shot, stricken by two bullets, and I was obliged to drag his huge body to one side before I could press my way in through the door.  The open doorway and window afforded ample light, and a single glance was sufficient to reveal most of the story.  It was a well-built cabin, recently erected, with hip roof and puncheon floor, the inside of the logs peeled, and white-washed.  It had a homelike look, the few scattered articles of furniture rudely but skillfully made.  A bit of chintz fluttered at the window, and a flower in a can bloomed on the sill.  The table had been smashed as by the blow of an axe, and pewter dishes were everywhere.  The bed in one corner had been stripped of its coverlets, many of them slashed by a knife, and the straw tick had been ripped open in a dozen places.  Coals from the fireplace lay widespread, some of them having eaten deeply into the hard wood before they ceased smouldering.

I saw all this, yet my eyes rested upon something else.  A man lay, bent double across an overturned bench, in a posture which hid his face from view.  His body was there alone, although a child’s shoe lay on the floor, and a woman’s linsey dress dangled from a hook against the wall.  I crept forward, my heart pounding madly, until I could gain sight of his face.  He was a big fellow, not more than thirty, with sandy hair and beard, and a pugnacious jaw, his coarse hickory shirt slashed into ribbons, a bullet wound in the center of his forehead, and one arm broken by a vicious blow.  His calloused hands yet gripped the haft of an axe, just as he had died—­fighting.

The sight of the man lying in that posture of horror was so terrible that I instantly grasped the body, dragging it from off the overturned bench, and seeking to give it a resting place on the floor.  But it was already stiffened in death, and I could only throw over it a blanket to hide the sight.  Tim’s voice spoke from the doorway.

“Injuns, I reckon?”

“Yes, they have been here; the man is dead.  But there must have been others, a woman and child also—­see that shoe on the floor, and the dress hanging over there.  The poor devil fought hard.”

Kennedy stepped inside, staring about him.

“I reckon likely he wus yere alone,” he commented slowly, evidently thinking it out.  “I figure like this—­thet he’d heerd rumors o’ Injuns bein’ raidin’ this way, an’ hed sent his fam’ly back ter sum fort ’round yere, but decided fer ter take his own chances.  Thar ain’t no waggon round yere, an’ no hosses, ‘cept thet muel.  He’d sure hav’ sum sorter contivance fer ter ride in.  Then agin he sorter looks like thet kind ov a feller ter me—­he wudn’t do no runnin’ hisself, but I reckon he’d take keer o’ his folks.  Whut’s this yere under the bench?—­hell, a letter.”  He held it up to the light, in an effort to decipher the description. “’Herman Slosser, Otterway, Illinoy—­ter be held till called fer.’  Thet’s it, Cap; thet’s his name, I’ll bet ye; an’ so we can’t be so blamed fur frum this yere Otterway fort.  Good Lord! won’t I be glad fer ter see it.”