The Greatest Works of James Oliver Curwood (Illustrated Edition). James Oliver Curwood
in his own curious way, Mukoki was already slipping along the edge of the rock, seeking some break by which he might reach the lower chasm. They were on the point of turning to the ascent of the mountain, along which they would have to go until they found such a break, when the old pathfinder directed the attention of his companions to the white top of a dead cedar stub projecting over the edge of the precipice.
"Go down that, mebby," he suggested, shrugging his shoulders to suggest that the experiment might be a dangerous one.
Rod looked over. The top of the stub was within easy reach, and the whole tree was entirely free of bark or limbs, a fact which in his present excitement did not strike him as especially unusual. Swinging his rifle strap over his shoulders he reached out, caught the slender apex of the stub, and before the others could offer a word of encouragement or warning was sliding down the wall of the rock into the chasm. Wabi was close behind him, and not waiting for Mukoki's descent the two boys hurried toward the cabin. Half-way to it Wabi stopped.
"This isn't fair. We've got to wait for Muky."
They looked back. Mukoki was not following. The old warrior was upon his knees at the base of the dead tree, as though he was searching for something among the rocks at its foot. Then he rose slowly, and rubbed his hands along the stub as high as he could reach. When he saw that Rod and Wabi were observing him he quickly came toward them, and Wabigoon, who was quick to notice any change in him, was confident that he had made a discovery of some kind.
"What have you found, Muky?"
"No so ver' much. Funny tree," grunted the Indian.
"Smooth as a fireman's brass pole," added Rod, seeing no significance in Mukoki's words. "Listen!"
He stopped so suddenly that Wabigoon bumped into him from behind.
"Did you hear that?"
"No."
For a few moments the three huddled close together in watchful silence. Mukoki was behind the boys or they would have seen that his rifle was ready to spring to his shoulder and that his black eyes were snapping with something not aroused by curiosity alone. The cabin was not more than twenty paces away. It was old, so old that Rod wondered how it had withstood the heavy storms of the last winter. A growth of saplings had found root in its rotting roof and the logs of which it was built were in the last stage of decay. There was no window, and where the door had once been there had grown a tree a foot in diameter, almost closing the narrow aperture through which the mysterious inhabitants had passed years before. A dozen paces, five paces from this door, and Mukoki's hand reached out and laid itself gently upon Wabi's shoulder. Rod saw the movement and stopped. A strange look had come into the old Indian's face, an expression in which there was incredulity and astonishment, as if he believed and yet doubted what his eyes beheld. Mutely he pointed to the tree growing before the door, and to the reddish, crumbling rot into which the logs had been turned by the passing of generations.
"Red pine," he said at last. "That cabin more'n' twent' t'ous'nd year old!"
There was an awesome ring in his voice. Rod understood, and clutched Wabi's arm. In an instant he thought of the other old cabin, in which they had found the skeletons. They had repaired that cabin and had passed the winter in it, and they knew that it had been built half a century or more before. But this cabin was beyond repair. To Rod it seemed as though centuries of time instead of decades had been at work on its timbers. Following close after Wabi he thrust his head through the door. Deep gloom shut out their vision. But as they looked, steadily inuring their eyes to the darkness within, the walls of the old cabin took form, and they saw that everywhere was vacancy. There was no ancient table, as in the other cabin they had discovered at the head of the first chasm, there were no signs of the life that had once existed, not even the remnants of a chair or a stool. The cabin was bare.
Foot by foot the two boys went around its walls. Mukoki took but a single glance inside and disappeared. Once alone he snapped down the safety of his rifle. Quickly, as if he feared interruption, he hurried around the old cabin, his eyes close to the earth. When Rod and Wabi returned to the door he was at the edge of the fall, crouching low among the rocks like an animal seeking a trail. Wabi pulled his companion back.
"Look!"
The old warrior rose, suddenly erect, and turned toward them, but the boys were hidden in the gloom. Then he hurried to the dead stub beside the chasm wall. Again he reached far up, rubbing his hand along its surface.
"I'm going to have a look at that tree!" whispered Wabi. "Something is puzzling Are you coming?"
He hurried across the rock-strewn opening, but Rod hung back. He could not understand his companions. For weeks and months they had planned to find this third waterfall. Visions of a great treasure had been constantly before their eyes, and now that they were here, with the gold perhaps under their very feet, both Mukoki and Wabigoon were more interested in a dead stub than in their search for it! His own heart was almost bursting with excitement. The very air which he breathed in the old cabin set his blood leaping with anticipation. Here those earlier adventurers had lived half a century or more ago. In it the life-blood of the murdered John Ball might have ebbed away. In this cabin the men whose skeletons he had found had slept, and planned, and measured their gold. And the gold! It was that and not the stub that interested Roderick Drew! Where was the lost treasure? Surely the old cabin must hold some clue for them, it would at least tell them more than the limbless white corpse of a tree!
From the door he looked back into the dank gloom, straining his eyes to see, and then glanced across the opening. Wabi had reached the stub, and both he and Mukoki were on their knees beside it. Probably they have found the marks of a lynx or a bear, thought Rod. A dozen paces away something else caught his eyes, a fallen red pine, dry and heavy with pitch, and in less than a minute he had gone to it and was back with a torch. Breathlessly he touched the tiny flame of a match to the stick. For a moment the pitch sputtered and hissed, then flared into light, and Rod held the burning wood above his head.
The young gold seeker's first look about him was disappointing. Nothing but the bare walls met his eyes. Then, in the farthest corner, he observed something that in the dancing torch-light was darker than the logs themselves, and he moved toward it. It was a tiny shelf, not more than a foot long, and upon it was a small tin box, black and rust-eaten by the passing of ages. With trembling fingers Rod took it in his hand. It was very light, probably empty. In it he might find the dust of John Ball's last tobacco. Then, suddenly, as he thought of this, he stopped in his search and a muffled exclamation of surprise fell from him. In the glow of the torch he looked at the tin box. It was crumbling with age and he might easily have crushed it in his hand—and yet it was still a tin box! If this box had remained why had not other things? Where were the pans and kettles, the pail and frying-pan, knives, cups and other articles which John Ball and the two Frenchmen must at one time have possessed in this cabin?
He returned to the door. Mukoki and Wabigoon were still at the dead stub. Even the flare of light in the old cabin had not attracted them. Tossing his torch away Rod tore off the top of the tin box. Something fell at his feet, and as he reached for it he saw that it was a little roll of paper, almost as discolored as the rust-eaten box itself. As gently as Mukoki had unrolled the precious birchbark map a few months before he smoothed out the paper. The edges of it broke and crumbled under his fingers, but the inner side of the roll was still quite white. Mukoki and Wabigoon, looking back, saw him suddenly turn toward them with a shrill cry on his lips, and the next instant he was racing in their direction, shouting wildly at every step.
"The gold!" he shrieked. "The gold! Hurrah!"
He was almost sobbing in his excitement when he stopped between them, holding out the bit of paper.
"I found it in the cabin—in a tin box! See, it's John Ball's writing—the writing that was on the old map! I found it—in a tin box—"
Wabi seized the paper. His own breath came more quickly when he saw what was upon it. There were a few lines of writing, dim but still legible, and a number of figures. Across the top of the paper was written,
"Account of John Ball, Henri Langlois, and Peter Plante for month ending June thirtieth, 1859."
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