“Your knife?” he asked, and others, attracted by Mrs. Huzzard’s scream, stood around the doors and looked at her too.
She nodded her head, scarce understanding the significance of it, and never taking her eyes from the dead man, whose face was yet hidden.
“He may not be dead,” she said, at last. “Look!”
“Oh, he’s dead, safe enough,” and Emmons lifted his hand. “Was he trying to rob you?”
“I—no—I don’t know,” she answered, vaguely.
Then another man turned the body over, and utter surprise was on every face; for, though it was Akkomi’s blanket, it was a much younger man who lay there. 285
“A white man, by Heavens!” said the miner who had first entered. “A white man, with brown paint on his face and hands! But, look here!” and he pulled down the collar of the dead man’s shirt, and showed a skin fair as a child’s.
“Something terribly crooked here,” he continued. “Where is Overton?”
Overton! At the name her very heart grew cold within her. Had he not threatened he would kill the man who visited her at night? Had he come straight to the cabin after leaving her? Had he kept his word? Had he—
“I think Overton left camp after supper—started for the lake,” answered some one.