DOWN THE PORCUPINE RIVER 227 



a mile into the woods I came upon what I supposed to 

 be the evidence of one of these tragedies. It was a 

 partly-built log cabin, but beautifully built so far as it 

 went. The logs were of uniform size, hewn smooth and 

 well fitted together. The walls were of the ordinary full 

 height for a log cabin but there the building had stopped. 

 No openings had been cut in the walls for windows or 

 for a door, and there was only a partial roof composed 

 of poles with some brush on top. I climbed up on the 

 wall and dropped inside. Here I found a Bible decayed 

 to pieces, a rusted teapot, a heavily silver-plated Win- 

 chester rifle, a fur robe so decayed that it resembled wet 

 brown paper, a china saucer that had been used for a 

 grease lamp, and some other odds and ends. 



It seemed to me that these were articles which under 

 ordinary circumstances would not have been left behind. 

 And had they been left, they would have been piled up 

 in a corner or arranged in some orderly way. I imagine 

 at the time the tragedy occurred the men who were 

 building the house were still living in a tent camp down 

 by the river where they had most of their belongings. 

 After some misfortune had happened to them, some In- 

 dians or other miners had probably found the tent camp 

 and taken it away but the house had escaped notice, 

 for it was so hidden by trees that there was no sign of 

 it from the river. The logs out of which the house had 

 been built had all been chopped nearby and the trees 

 close to the river left intact. 



I should probably have taken with me at least the 

 silver-plated rifle but for the plan which I had already 

 formed of some day soon leaving my raft behind and 

 walking along the river till I found Indians. I 

 was beginning to lose patience with the raft; and if I 



