"I left them bones with the adjutant over to the fort," continued Tom, "as he thought maybe somebody might come along who could throw more light on the mystery. Then I called on Weisselbaum an' told him we were just a-gettin' under good headway poisoning wolves, trapping beaver, an' so forth, an' he offered to buy all our catch--wanted to make a bargain with me right then--but I stood him off, for I think maybe we can do better to take our skins into Leavenworth. Some of the officers wanted to know if we couldn't bring 'em over a saddle of antelope for their mess whenever one of us goes over there for our mail. I guess we can do it just as well as not an' make a little spending money on the side; an', besides, it's always a good idea to be on good terms with the officers at the post, for we may want favors from them now an' then." Since moving into our dugout we had found ourselves so much more cramped for room than we had been in the tent that, following Tom's suggestion and example, we had each built himself a swinging frame of poles with a buffalo-hide stretched over it on which to spread our beds. During the day we kept these hanging bunks triced up to the timbers overhead, out of the way, lowering them to within a couple of feet of the floor to sleep in after supper each evening. We found them a luxury compared with sleeping on the hard ground. Next day, after Tom's return from the fort, Jack and I rode down the creek to look for the bones of the wolf hunters of whom French Dave had told Tom and had little difficulty in finding them, for the burnt remains of their little log cabin, on the prairie, a little way from the timber, attracted us and guided us to the spot. The bones of the two men had been scattered by the wolves, but the irons of their burnt wagon were lying just where the fire had left them. That their camp had been established at a reasonable distance from the timber and otherwise well located in a defensive point of view showed that these men had had some knowledge of the dangers to be guarded against from hostile Indians and that they had probably been plainsmen of experience; but, as Tom said, their fatal error was in allowing too many Indians to come into their camp. We were now--about the middle of December--"doing a land-office business," as Jack expressed it, in taking wolf pelts, gathering them in daily about as fast as we could take care of them. Jack was doing well also in beaver trapping, having already accumulated a lot of fine furs. Tom had rigged up a press by means of which we put the skins into compact bales and stowed them away in the tent. The tunnel connecting the dugout and tent came up into the latter right in the centre, between the legs of the iron tripod that supported the tent-pole, and he placed the bales of skins in a close wall all around the tent, leaving an open space in the centre around the tripod, and I asked him why.