"We, John Ball, Henri Langlois, and Peter Plante, having discovered gold at this fall, do hereby agree to joint partnership in the same, and do pledge ourselves to forget our past differences and work in mutual good will and honesty, so help us God. Signed,
"JOHN BALL, HENRI LANGLOIS, PETER PLANTE."
Through the name of John Ball had been drawn a broad black line which had almost destroyed the letters, and at the end of this line, in brackets, was printed a word in French, which for the hundredth time Wabi translated aloud:
"Dead!"
"From the handwriting of the original we know that Ball was a man of some education," continued Rod. "And there is no doubt but that the birch-bark sketch was made by him. All of the writing was in one hand, with the exception of the signatures of Langlois and Plante, and you could hardly decipher the letters in those signatures if you did not already know their names. From these lines it is quite certain that we were right at the cabin when we concluded that the two Frenchmen killed the Englishman to get him out of the partnership. Isn't that story clear enough?"
"Yes, as far as you have gone," replied Wabi. "These three men discovered gold, quarreled, signed this agreement, and then Ball was murdered. The two Frenchmen, as Mukoki suggested at the cabin, came out a little later for supplies, and brought the buckskin bag full of gold with them. They had come as far as the cabin at the head of the chasm when they quarreled over possession of the map and agreement, fought, and died. From the old guns and other evidences we found near them we know that all this happened at least fifty years ago, and perhaps more. But—"
He paused, whistling softly.
"Where is the third waterfall?"
"I thought we settled that last winter," replied Rod, a little irritated by his companion's doubt. "If writing goes for anything, Ball was a man of education, and he drew the map according to some sort of scale. The second fall is only half as far from the first fall as the third fall is from the second, which is conclusive evidence of this. Now Mukoki discovered the first waterfall fifty miles down the chasm!"
"And we figured from the distances between John Ball's marks on the birch, that the third fall was about two hundred and fifty miles from our old camp at the head of the chasm," rejoined Wabigoon. "It looks reasonable."