"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.