"Queer!" ejaculated Rube, standing up and contemplating the gruesome remnants of the skeleton. "Mortal queer it is. Can't make it out. How'd he come ter be fixed up thataway in the middle of the tree, dyin' thar all lonesome, like a poor critter caught in a trap? How'd it happen, Kiddie?"
He appeared to expect Kiddie to tell him off-hand exactly how the thing had occurred.
"Dunno," returned Kiddie, with a grave headshake. "It's a mystery. I'm trying t' think it out. What way was he fixed?"
"Can't just say," Rube answered slowly. "Inside the tree's like a chimney. You c'n see daylight if yer looks up, as I did. I couldn't see that it was a man—a skeleton. Thar was a mass of honeycomb an' wax below what was left of his feet. I reached up an' seized hold o' somethin'. Guess it was one of the poor chap's legs. I was pullin' at it, an' pullin', when my foot slipped, an' the whole concern came down on top o' me, crumblin' into dust. How d'you reckon he got thar? Kin y'u explain?"
"Seems to me," said Kiddie, after a long pause, "that there are three possible explanations. First, that he was killed by some enemy and shoved in there out of sight: which ain't at all likely, since it would have been much easier to fling the body into the lake, and quite as safe from discovery to leave it lying here in the forest glade. Second, that he was escaping from some other Redskins, or even from some dangerous wild animal, and went into the hollow tree for safety."
"Climbin' too high, an' gettin' fixed so as he couldn't wriggle out again either up or down?" suggested Rube.
"Exactly," nodded Kiddie. "But, if that was the way of it, why didn't his pursuers get on his tracks and find him? I'm not of opinion that he had any pursuers, either animal or Indian. I believe he was just a lone scout—a trapper, maybe, but a lonesome wanderer, anyway—and that he was taking shelter from a storm. Perhaps he knew of that hollow tree: perhaps he came upon it by chance. It was a convenient shelter in either case. That's my third point."
"An' a reasonable one," commented Rube. "But it don't account fer how he came t' be fixed in so high above the ground. If he was only shelterin', why didn't he walk out again when the storm was through?"
"I'm supposin' it was a snowstorm, or else a fierce blizzard," Kiddie went on. "As the snow got deeper an' deeper, it would block up the hole that he entered by, and he'd work his way higher an' higher to get at the purer air. Maybe he'd wait till the storm was over, and then the snow might have been so deep that he'd think it easier to climb higher still and escape that way rather than attempt to go back feet foremost and burrow a passage through the drift. And then he got so wedged in that there was no movin' and no means of escape either way, and he just had to stay there and die a lingerin' death."
"Yes," said Rube. "I guess that's th' explanation of the whole thing. Wonder where he come from. Pity thar's none of his clothes left: no gun, or knife, or watch, or pocket-book ter tell us who he was, an' all that."