“But what I was going to say,” said Brent, “is that I think this flourishing metropolis is haunted or bewitched or something. I just cut the peel off a potato only to find that there was no potato inside it. That’s a very funny thing when you come to think of it. Where’s the potato? It was inside when I started to----” “You peeled it all away,” said Tom disgustedly. “Do you believe I could have done that?” “That’s what I was telling you,” said Tom, “about peeling close. _You_ don’t _peel_, you _slice_.” “Them’s harsh words, Tom.” “Well,” Tom laughed. “You can’t imagine my _amazement_,” said Brent, “when I looked in my hands and found there was _no potato there_. Do you know, Tommy, I’m beginning to think I never really saw any rattlesnake at all, that it was just----” “Shh, listen!” said Tom. “’Tis nothing but the wind,” said Brent; “the i is pronounced as in high. Do you want me to slice some bacon now? I learned how to do that over the radio; also how to make salads. Station E-A-T-S.” It was cosy eating supper in the cabin. Tried and true camper though he was, Tom had never been in such a place before. The little abode seemed to harmonize with that wild, remote gulch and to have become an inseparable part of it. There were two bunks in the drawing room (as Brent called it) one above the other, like berths on a ship. They were not furniture but a part of the place. In the little enclosed shed, which was the only other room, was an old-fashioned bed, of faded yellow wood with flowers painted on it. All the coverings had been taken from the cabin (our adventurers had their own), but on this old single bed in the lean-to was a bearskin robe, memento of the old hunting days. It carried Tom’s thoughts back through the years (how many?) to the time when Mink and Buck trod those silent depths, and when the roar of beasts was borne upon just such winds as that which was now springing up. Odds and ends of paraphernalia in this primitive lean-to, pathetic little trinkets, showed it to have been the room which little June Sanderson had occupied. Tom wondered where this child of the forest was now, and if she was happy in the big, glaring, noisy world. And if she ever wished for her warm bearskin comforter. In the larger apartment (though it was small enough) were rusty old traps hanging against the logs, a couple of vicious-looking knives stuck in a crevice (Tom thought these had been used for skinning animals), and several dilapidated pairs of snowshoes. One thing affected Tom strangely: this was a bleached skull of some small animal, on which stood, in its own grease, a half-burned candle. The other half of that candle had lighted the last minutes, perhaps, that old Buck Sanderson had spent in his lonely cabin. And the skull. How old was it? And when did the shot ring out in those solemn depths of wilderness which had laid that creature low? For how many years had it been a candlestick?