At last it consented to descend, but very gingerly feeling every step with doubtful forefeet, and craned neck still straining against Canlan. Even when he succeeded in coaxing and commanding it to the descent it seemed very doubtful about going out on the hollow toward the shack, and reminded me, in the way it walked there, of a hen as you may see one coming out of a barn when the rain takes off. "What in thunder’s wrong with you?" cried Canlan. "Come along, will you? Looks as if there was somebody, sure thing, in the shack. Hullo, the shack! Hullo, the cabin!" he hailed again. "——the shack! Hullo, the cabin!" cried out the rib beyond, in an echo. So Canlan advanced on the cabin, his rifle loose on his arm, right up to the door on which he knocked, and from the sound of the knocking I declare I had an idea that the place was tenanted. He knocked again. "Sounds as if there was somebody in here," he said, in a low, thick whisper, so that I thought he was afraid. He knocked again, rat-tat-tat, and sniffed twice, and piped up in his wheezy voice: "Good day, sir; here’s two pilgrims come for shelter." It was at his third rap, louder, more forcible on the door, which was a very rough affair, being three tree-stems cleft down the centre and bound together with cross-pieces, as I surmised, on the inside,—just at the last dull knock of his knuckles that the door fell bodily inward, and a great flutter of dust arose inside the dark cabin. "Anyone there?" he asked, and then stepped boldly in. "Nobody here," he said, bringing down his rifle with a clatter. "One has to be careful approaching lonesome cabins far away from a settlement at all times." Then suddenly he turned a puzzled face on me. "Queer that, eh?" "What?" "Why, that there door. Propped up from the inside. If there was any kind of a smell here apart from jest the or’nary smell of a log shanty, I ’d be opining that that there number three o’ this here _push_ that worked the mine—— Say!—" he broke off, "where in thunder is the prospect itself?" And out he went of the mirk of the cabin, in a perfect twitter of nerves, and away across to the spur of which I told you. There I saw him from the door (by which the pack-horse stood quiet now, the reins trailing) kick his foot several times in the earth. Then he turned to see if I observed him, and flicking off his hat waved it round his head and came posting back. "There ’s half a dozen logs flung across the shaft they sunk," said he, "and they’re covered over with dirt, to hide it like. Let’s get in first and see what’s what inside." There was no flooring to the cabin and at one end was a charred place on the ground. Canlan looked up at the low roof there and, stretching up his hands, groped a little and then removed a sort of hatch in the roof.