"Your peoples? Why, I thought you said no one lived over on this side. And we've seen no signs of hunting here anywhere." Skookie went on to explain. "S'pose my peoples hunt. Kill big bear. Some mans take hide, some mans take meat, some mans take head. Dis head not good for eat, but very much heavy. Some mans get tired, lay it down here; maybe so birds eat-um all up but bone." "But how long ago did all this happen, Skookie?" asked John. "I dinno." "And where did the hunters come from?" asked Rob. "I dinno. Maybe so Eagle Harbor, maybe so Old Harbor." "Which way is Old Harbor, Skookie?" asked Rob, suddenly. The lad pointed back across the mountains, beyond the bay, and beyond their camp on the farther side. "Plenty far," he said. "Then which way is Eagle Harbor--I suppose you mean a native village." "Eagle Harbor dis way." And Skookie pointed across the head of the pass toward which they were travelling up the valley. "How far?" demanded Rob. "I dinno," answered Skookie; "plenty miles, maybe so. My peoples live Old Harbor." Rob studied for a moment. "I'll bet that if we kept on," said he, "until we came to the top of this divide, we'd find the head of a river running down the other way. Like as not it would go to some bay where Eagle Harbor village is. Well, that makes the island seem not quite so big. Come on, let's go on up to the top of this pass, anyhow." So they plodded on, but did not reach the summit that night, nor did they find any further solution to the riddle of the lost bear skull, which latter Rob left in the trail, intending to pick it up on their return, although Skookie seemed to be averse to this performance; owing, no doubt, to some of his native superstitions. That night they camped high up in an air which was very cold, so that they shivered before morning, although their fire of little logs had not yet burned out. By noon of the next day, two camps out from the sea, and at a distance of perhaps twenty-five miles or more, they reached what was plainly the divide between this valley and another leading off to the northwestward. Here they paused. Before them stretched a wilderness of upstanding mountain peaks into which there wound the narrow end of a new valley, widening but slightly so far as their eyes could trace it. "Eagle Harbor that way, Skookie?" asked Rob, leaning on his rifle and looking out over the wild sea which lay before him. "I dinno," said Skookie. "How far do you think it is?" "I dinno." The Aleut lad was truthful, for neither he nor any of his family had ever crossed the island here, and he knew nothing of what lay ahead. Plainly uneasy now, Skookie had had enough of travel away from camp. "Maybe go back now?" he asked Rob, inquiringly.