They entered the hut with feelings of intense curiosity. It was well that they trod gingerly as they crossed the threshold, for the floor was so honeycombed with the holes of the timber rats that walking was difficult and even dangerous. The creatures had evidently gnawed through the sill beams supporting the floor, for the hearthstone in front of the open fireplace had subsided and sagged through into the foundations, leaving a big open space. The boys determined to explore this later but in the meantime other things in the hut attracted their attention.
There was a rough board table with a cracker box to serve as chair drawn up close to it. But both the table and the box had been almost gnawed to pieces by the ravenous rats. Some tin utensils stood upon the table but all trace of what they might have contained had, of course, vanished. Even pictures from illustrated magazines which had once been pasted on the walls had been devoured, leaving only traces to show what they had been.
Nat, while the others had been investigating at large, had made his way to the corner of the hut where a rude bunk had been built. As he gazed into its dark recesses he shrank back with a startled cry.
"Fellows! Oh, fellows! Come here!"
The other two hastened to his side and were scarcely less shocked than he at what they saw. Within the bunk, the bed clothing of which had been devoured wholesale, lay a heap of whitened bones. A skull at the head of the rude bed-place told all too clearly that the owner had either been killed or had died in the lonely place and had been devoured by the rats. The grisly evidences were only too plain.
The boys were almost unnerved by this discovery, and it was some time before any one of them spoke. Then Nat said in a low tone, almost a whisper:—
"I wonder who he was?"
"There's a tin box," said Joe, pointing to a receptacle beneath the bunk, "maybe there's something in that to tell."
"Perhaps," said Nat, picking the article up. It was a much battered case of the type known as "despatch box." The marks of the rats' teeth showed upon it, but it had not been opened. A rusty hammer with the handle half gnawed off lay a short distance away. With one sharp blow of this tool Nat knocked the lock off the despatch box. He gave a cry of triumph as he opened it. Within, yellow and faded, were several papers.