His cabin was empty.
He had kept a diary up to the 24th of December, when it stopped
abruptly. There were a few marten skins in the cabin, and his outfit.
That was all. In some cottonwoods, not far from the camp, they found his
hatchet and his bag hanging to a tree.
It looked for a time, as though the mystery of Hughie McKeever's
disappearance would be one of the unsolved tragedies of the mountains.
But a trapper, whose route took him along Thunder Creek that spring,
noticed that his dog made a side trip each time, away from the trail. At
last he investigated, and found the body of Hughie McKeever. He had
probably been caught in a snow-slide, for his leg was broken below the
knee. Unable to walk, he had put his snowshoes on his hands and,
dragging the broken leg, had crawled six miles through the snow and ice
of the mountain winter. When he was found, he was only a mile and a half
from his cabin and safety.
There are many other tragedies of that valley. There was a man who went
up Bridge Creek to see a claim he had located there. He was to be out
four days.
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