The identity of the dead man was soon established by papers found in
his pockets. He was the trader. The skull found in the ruins was
unmistakably that of an Indian. A break in this skull showed that the
person had died a violent death and had not been caught by the fire. The
conclusion the boys arrived at was that the trader had killed the Indian
and had fled to the woods. The Indians in revenge had burned his trading
station. That he had intended to destroy the explorers was beyond
question. He had, therefore, met a well-deserved fate. His body was
buried, Eskimo-style, on top of the ground, with stones piled over it to
protect it from wolves.

When this work had been completed, the two boys took the infernal-machine
down to the frozen surface of the lake where there could be no danger
from an explosion, and connected it with wires which they laid along the
surface from the steep, snow-buried shore.

"Must be twenty feet of snow in there!" exclaimed Bruce, as for the third
time he lost his footing and slid to the bottom of the slope.

Presently they were well behind the ridge in the forest, and out of range
of any flying splinters of machine or ice.

"I feel as I used to when I was a schoolboy, and hid with the rest of the
gang out in the woods and shot off charges of gunpowder in a gas-pipe
bomb," grinned Barney, as he screwed one wire to a post of a battery.

"Now we'll--" he exclaimed breathlessly.

His last word was lost in the roar of a tremendous explosion. The shores
of the bay took up the sound and sent it echoing and reechoing through