“Damn you, go on! What’s the matter with you?” The steady strokes recommenced. Little by little there was uncovered and dragged out the skeleton of someone Who Once Was. Nick looked sullen and strange, but he did not falter. He worked steadily on until they lay--an indistinguishable heap--beside the narrow gully. Landis said nothing, and the pick strokes ate farther and farther into the bank. Suddenly there was a terrible sound--half a shriek and half a gurgle that died away in the throat--which startled them; and swinging around, Landis saw an old Indian tottering along the narrow ledge that bordered the river there. He was stumbling and blindly staggering toward them, waving his arms above his head as he came. A bareheaded, vilely dirty and ragged old man--how old no one might be able to say. As his bleared eyes found the skeleton heap, he shrieked forth in the Indian tongue something (though Landis knew no word of what he might say) that sent a chill over him of prescient knowledge of what was to come. He turned his back on the old man, and addressed himself to Nick. “What does he say?” The younger Paiute looked old and gray with a horror that Landis refused to translate. “My father----” “Yes, I know. Your father. What does he say?” “My father----” Nick’s words came slowly, “He say----them----bones----” “For God’s sake, what? Why don’t you say what? Can’t you talk?” “Them,” Nick’s teeth were chattering now, “my----my----mother.” Landis caught his breath. Then a stinging pain shot through his left arm, and something fell to the ground. He swung around in time to see the old Paiute, with another stone in his raised hand, his face distorted with hate and fury. “Quit that!” Landis yelled, and strode toward him. But the old man’s fury was now turned to fear as he saw this white giant bearing down on him, and the stone fell short of its mark. He started to flee before the strength he feared, but the narrow ledge that lay between the river and the bluff would have been but insecure foothold for steadier steps than his. He tripped--reeled--and then with a cry that Landis will remember so long as he lives--he went backward; and down into the muddy river the eddies sucked him--down and down--and so out of sight.