At last Sheldon moved on, pondering the thoughts which centered about the white pile of bones which once, perhaps four or five or six years ago, had been a man. How the poor devil must have cursed the nights that blotted the world out, the winds which shrieked of snow, the mountains which rose like walls about a convict.
“What became of his gun?” cried Sheldon suddenly, speaking aloud. “The buckle from his belt, the metal things in his pockets, knife, coins, cartridges? The things which prowling animals can’t eat! They don’t carry such things off!”
He came back, walking swiftly. There was little grass so close to the cliffs; nothing but bare, rocky ground and a few bits of dry wood, two or three old cones dropped from a pine; nothing to hide the articles which Sheldon sought. But, although he made assurance doubly sure by searching carefully for more than an hour, back and forth along the cliffs, out among the trees, he found nothing. Not so much as the sole of a boot.
“And that,” muttered Sheldon, taking up Buck’s lead rope, “if a man asked me, is infernally strange.”
As he went on he strove frowningly for an explanation and found none. The man had not been alone? He had had a companion? This companion had taken his rifle, his knife and watch, or whatever might have been in his pockets, and had gone on. Possibly. But, then, why had he not taken the time to bury the body? And how was it that there was not a single shred of clothing?
“Coyotes may be so everlastingly hungry up here that they eat a man’s boots, soles, nails and all!” grunted Sheldon. “Only—I am not the kind of a tenderfoot to believe that particular brand of fairy tale. There’s not even a button!”
It is the way of the human intellect to contend with locks upon doors which shut on secrets. The mind, given half of the story, demands the remainder. John Sheldon, as he trudged on, grew half angry with himself because he could not answer the questions which insisted upon having answers. But before noon he had almost forgotten the scattered bones under the cliffs, the matter thrust to one rim of his thoughts which must now be given over almost entirely to finding trail.
For no longer was there meadow-land under foot. The strip of fairly level, grassy land was gone abruptly; beyond lay boulder-strewn slopes, fringed with dense brush, all but impassable to the packhorse.
Often the man must leave the animal while he went ahead seeking a way; often must the two of them turn back for some unexpected fall of cliff, all unseen until they were close to the edge, compelling them to retrace their steps perhaps a hundred yards, or five hundred, and many a time did Sheldon begin to think that the way was shut to the plucky brute that labored on under his pack.
But always he found a way on, a way down. And always, being a man used to the woods, did he keep in mind that the time might come when he’d have to turn back for good. If he could in time win on through, come out at the north end of the Sasnokee-keewan, then he would have had a trip which left nothing to be desired.