At last the old Indian raised her head. Pushing back a few long wisps of hair that had fallen over her face, she asked for water. Her mouth seemed parched and dry, and her withered lips scarcely moved. She had just seen the old stone house they were looking for, and would tell the white men of it, she said. "Is it the same you saw when a child?" asked the officer. "Yes, but broken,--the walls stand not. Last moon came men from the north while hunting." "What did they do?" "They broke the house,--its walls are down," mumbled the old woman with a scowl. "_How_ were they before, Tillie?" "Before? Ah, before! In my childhood I saw it,--that Boundary House on the summit. How green the spruce and pine trees, and the nuts that dropped before snow-fall! What fires we made, and the roaring and sweet-smelling! How dear the Indian lovers, and how brave in bear hunting! With teeth of the cinnamon and grizzly we made chains for our necks, and with breasts of waterfowl we made aprons. In streams we tracked beaver and muskrat, besides mink for our coats in the winter." "But, Tillie, old woman, what of the white men,--the Russians?" "Not much white, but dark," she returned, correcting him. "Fine dressing, many knives and guns in belt, buttons bright like money, and they sit on animals, big like caribou, what you call? Yes, horses. Then in boat they sailed to beautiful island. Listen!" The old creature placed her hand behind her ear as if trying to catch some sound or name. Then, brightening up, she exclaimed: "Baranhoff it is! Big house, fine castle. Beautiful laughing ladies in lovely dressing. Gold, gold, I see everywhere on fingers, ears and necks. Money plenty. All make pleasure, good time, dancing, gambling; drink tea much from big copper dish. Ah, great man many sleeps gone by. This way they dance," then added the old creature, scrambling to her feet clumsily and catching up her tattered skirt daintily with each hand after the manner of a danseuse. Then, still with closed eyes, she glided gracefully and with dignified movement over the floor in imitation of long dead Russian ladies of high degree. The Lieutenant strummed a few chords softly upon his banjo, but old Tillie was drowsily crooning her own accompaniment as she swayed backward and forward, and seemed not to notice. At last, wearied by her unusual efforts, she sank upon the floor in her accustomed attitude and breathed deeply. "But, Tillie, old woman," urged the Lieutenant, who had not forgotten his important business with the Indians, "what did the men leave in the old stone house on the mountain to tell us they built it?" "I see iron box and many things in it; kettles, pipes, spoons and a big knife. I see small gun that shoots, and bullets to put in it. Many things are in box, and for it you must dig below the ground, not far, in a corner by the old chimney there; but first you roll the stones away."