THE WOLF HUNTERS

A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness

BYJAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

1908

To my comrades of the great northern wilderness, those faithfulcompanions with whom I have shared the joys and hardships of the "longsilent trail, " and especially to Mukoki, my red guide and belovedfriend, does the writer gratefully dedicate this volume

CONTENTS

Chapter

I The Fight in the ForestII How Wabigoon Became a White ManIII Roderick Sees the FootprintIV Roderick's First Taste of the Hunter's LifeV Shots in the WildernessVI Mukoki Disturbs the Ancient SkeletonsVII Roderick Discovers the Buckskin BagVIII How Wolf Became the Companion of MenIX Wolf Takes Vengeance Upon His PeopleX Roderick Explores the ChasmXI Roderick's DreamXII The Secret of the Skeleton's HandXIII Snowed InXIV The Rescue of WabigoonXV Roderick Holds the Woongas at BayXVI The Surprise at the Post

Illustrations:

With his rifle ready Rob approached the fissure (Frontispiece)Knife--fight--heem killed!The leader stopped in his snow-shoes

THE WOLF HUNTERS

CHAPTER I

THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST

Cold winter lay deep in the Canadian wilderness. Over it the moon wasrising, like a red pulsating ball, lighting up the vast white silence ofthe night in a shimmering glow. Not a sound broke the stillness of thedesolation. It was too late for the life of day, too early for thenocturnal roamings and voices of the creatures of the night. Like thebasin of a great amphitheater the frozen lake lay revealed in the lightof the moon and a billion stars. Beyond it rose the spruce forest, blackand forbidding. Along its nearer edges stood hushed walls of tamarack, bowed in the smothering clutch of snow and ice, shut in by impenetrablegloom. 

A huge white owl flitted out of this rim of blackness, then back again, and its first quavering hoot came softly, as though the mystic hour ofsilence had not yet passed for the night-folk. The snow of the day hadceased, hardly a breath of air stirred the ice-coated twigs of thetrees. Yet it was bitter cold--so cold that a man, remaining motionless, would have frozen to death within an hour. 

Suddenly there was a break in the silence, a weird, thrilling sound, like a great sigh, but not human--a sound to make one's blood run fasterand fingers twitch on rifle-stock. It came from the gloom of thetamaracks. After it there fell a deeper silence than before, and theowl, like a noiseless snowflake, drifted out over the frozen lake. Aftera few moments it came again, more faintly than before. One versed inwoodcraft would have slunk deeper into the rim of blackness, andlistened, and wondered, and watched; for in the sound he would haverecognized the wild, half-conquered note of a wounded beast's sufferingand agony. 

Slowly, with all the caution born of that day's experience, a huge bullmoose walked out into the glow of the moon. His magnificent head, drooping under the weight of massive antlers, was turned inquisitivelyacross the lake to the north. His nostrils were distended, his eyesglaring, and he left behind a trail of blood. Half a mile away he caughtthe edge of the spruce forest. There something told him he would findsafety. A hunter would have known that he was wounded unto death as hedragged himself out into the foot-deep snow of the lake. 

A dozen rods out from the tamaracks he stopped, head thrown high, longears pitched forward, and nostrils held half to the sky. It is in thisattitude that a moose listens when he hears a trout splashthree-quarters of a mile away. Now there was only the vast, unendingsilence, broken only by the mournful hoot of the snow owl on the otherside of the lake. Still the great beast stood immovable, a little poolof blood growing upon the snow under his forward legs. What was themystery that lurked in the blackness of yonder forest? Was it danger?The keenest of human hearing would have detected nothing. Yet to thoselong slender ears of the bull moose, slanting beyond the heavy plates ofhis horns, there came a sound. The animal lifted his head still higherto the sky, sniffed to the east, to the west, and back to the shadows ofthe tamaracks. But it was the north that held him. 

From beyond that barrier of spruce there soon came a sound that manmight have heard--neither the beginning nor the end of a wail, butsomething like it. Minute by minute it came more clearly, now growing involume, now almost dying away, but every instant approaching--thedistant hunting call of the wolf-pack! What the hangman's noose is tothe murderer, what the leveled rifles are to the condemned spy, thathunt-cry of the wolves is to the wounded animal of the forests. 

Instinct taught this to the old bull. His head dropped, his huge antlersleveled themselves with his shoulders, and he set off at a slow trottoward the east. He was taking chances in thus crossing the open, but tohim the spruce forest was home, and there he might find refuge. In hisbrute brain he reasoned that he could get there before the wolves brokecover. And then--

Again he stopped, so suddenly that his forward legs doubled under himand he pitched into the snow. This time, from the direction of thewolf-pack, there came the ringing report of a rifle! It might have beena mile or two miles away, but distance did not lessen the fear itbrought to the dying king of the North. That day he had heard the samesound, and it had brought mysterious and weakening pain in his vitals. With a supreme effort he brought himself to his feet, once more sniffedinto the north, the east, and the west, then turned and buried himselfin the black and frozen wilderness of tamarack. 

Stillness fell again with the sound of the rifle-shot. It might havelasted five minutes or ten, when a long, solitary howl floated fromacross the lake. It ended in the sharp, quick yelp of a wolf on thetrail, and an instant later was taken up by others, until the pack wasonce more in full cry. Almost simultaneously a figure darted out uponthe ice from the edge of the forest. A dozen paces and it paused andturned back toward the black wall of spruce. 

"Are you coming, Wabi?"

A voice answered from the woods. "Yes. Hurry up--run!"

Thus urged, the other turned his face once more across the lake. He wasa youth of not more than eighteen. In his right hand he carried a club. His left arm, as if badly injured, was done up in a sling improvisedfrom a lumberman's heavy scarf. His face was scratched and bleeding, andhis whole appearance showed that he was nearing complete exhaustion. Fora few moments he ran through the snow, then halted to a staggering walk. His breath came in painful gasps. The club slipped from his nervelessfingers, and conscious of the deathly weakness that was overcoming himhe did not attempt to regain it. Foot by foot he struggled on, untilsuddenly his knees gave way under him and he sank down into the snow. 

From the edge of the spruce forest a young Indian now ran out upon thesurface of the lake. His breath was coming quickly, but with excitementrather than fatigue. Behind him, less than half a mile away, he couldhear the rapidly approaching cry of the hunt-pack, and for an instant hebent his lithe form close to the snow, measuring with the acuteness ofhis race the distance of the pursuers. Then he looked for his whitecompanion, and failed to see the motionless blot that marked where theother had fallen. A look of alarm shot into his eyes, and resting hisrifle between his knees he placed his hands, trumpet fashion, to hismouth and gave a signal call which, on a still night like this, carriedfor a mile. 

"Wa-hoo-o-o-o-o-o! Wa-hoo-o-o-o-o-o!"

At that cry the exhausted boy in the snow staggered to his feet, andwith an answering shout which came but faintly to the ears of theIndian, resumed his flight across the lake. Two or three minutes laterWabi came up beside him. 

"Can you make it, Rod?" he cried. 

The other made an effort to answer, but his reply was hardly more than agasp. Before Wabi could reach out to support him he had lost his littleremaining strength and fallen for a second time into the snow. 

"I'm afraid--I--can't do it--Wabi, " he whispered. "I'm--bushed--"

The young Indian dropped his rifle and knelt beside the wounded boy, supporting his head against his own heaving shoulders. 

"It's only a little farther, Rod, " he urged. "We can make it, and taketo a tree. We ought to have taken to a tree back there, but I didn'tknow that you were so far gone; and there was a good chance to makecamp, with three cartridges left for the open lake. "

"Only three!"

"That's all, but I ought to make two of them count in this light. Here, take hold of my shoulders! Quick!"

He doubled himself like a jack-knife in front of his half-prostratecompanion. From behind them there came a sudden chorus of the wolves, louder and clearer than before. 

"They've hit the open and we'll have them on the lake inside of twominutes, " he cried. "Give me your arms, Rod! There! Can you hold thegun?"

He straightened himself, staggering under the other's weight, and setoff on a half-trot for the distant tamaracks. Every muscle in hispowerful young body was strained to its utmost tension. Even more fullythan his helpless burden did he realize the peril at their backs. 

Three minutes, four minutes more, and then--

A terrible picture burned in Wabi's brain, a picture he had carried fromboyhood of another child, torn and mangled before his very eyes by theseoutlaws of the North, and he shuddered. Unless he sped those threeremaining bullets true, unless that rim of tamaracks was reached intime, he knew what their fate would be. There flashed into his mind onelast resource. He might drop his wounded companion and find safety forhimself. But it was a thought that made Wabi smile grimly. This was notthe first time that these two had risked their lives together, and thatvery day Roderick had fought valiantly for the other, and had been theone to suffer. If they died, it would be in company. Wabi made up hismind to that and clutched the other's arms in a firmer grip. He waspretty certain that death faced them both. They might escape the wolves, but the refuge of a tree, with the voracious pack on guard below, meantonly a more painless end by cold. Still, while there was life there washope, and he hurried on through the snow, listening for the wolvesbehind him and with each moment feeling more keenly that his own powersof endurance were rapidly reaching an end. 

For some reason that Wabi could not explain the hunt-pack had ceased togive tongue. Not only the allotted two minutes, but five of them, passedwithout the appearance of the animals on the lake. Was it possible thatthey! had lost the trail? Then it occurred to the Indian that perhaps hehad wounded one of the pursuers, and that the others, discovering hisinjury, had set upon him and were now participating in one of thecannibalistic feasts that had saved them thus far. Hardly had he thoughtof this possibility when he was thrilled by a series of long howls, andlooking back he discerned a dozen or more dark objects moving swiftlyover their trail. 

Not an eighth of a mile ahead was the tamarack forest. Surely Rod couldtravel that distance!

"Run for it, Rod!" he cried. "You're rested now. I'll stay here andstop 'em!"

He loosened the other's arms, and as he did so his rifle fell from thewhite boy's nerveless grip and buried itself in the snow. As he relievedhimself of his burden he saw for the first time the deathly pallor andpartly closed eyes of his companion. With a new terror filling his ownfaithful heart he knelt beside the form which lay so limp and lifeless, his blazing eyes traveling from the ghastly face to the oncoming wolves, his rifle ready in his hands. He could now discern the wolves trailingout from the spruce forest like ants. A dozen of them were almost withinrifle-shot. Wabi knew that it was with this vanguard of the pack that hemust deal if he succeeded in stopping the scores behind. Nearer andnearer he allowed them to come, until the first were scarce two hundredfeet away. Then, with a sudden shout, the Indian leaped to his feet anddashed fearlessly toward them. This unexpected move, as he had intended, stopped the foremost wolves in a huddled group for an instant, and inthis opportune moment Wabi leveled his gun and fired. A long howl ofpain testified to the effect of the shot. Hardly had it begun when Wabifired again, this time with such deadly precision that one of thewolves, springing high into the air, tumbled back lifeless among thepack without so much as making a sound. 

Running to the prostrate Roderick, Wabi drew him quickly upon his back, clutched his rifle in the grip of his arm, and started again for thetamaracks. Only once did he look back, and then he saw the wolvesgathering in a snarling, fighting crowd about their slaughteredcomrades. Not until he had reached the shelter of the tamaracks did theIndian youth lay down his burden, and then in his own exhaustion he fellprone upon the snow, his black eyes fixed cautiously upon the feastingpack. A few minutes later he discerned dark spots appearing here andthere upon the whiteness of the snow, and at these signs of thetermination of the feast he climbed up into the low branches of a spruceand drew Roderick after him. Not until then did the wounded boy showvisible signs of life. Slowly he recovered from the faintness which hadoverpowered him, and after a little, with some assistance from Wabi, wasable to place himself safely on a higher limb. 

"That's the second time, Wabi, " he said, reaching a hand downaffectionately to the other's shoulder. "Once from drowning, once fromthe wolves. I've got a lot to even up with you!"

"Not after what happened to-day!"

The Indian's dusky face was raised until the two were looking into eachother's eyes, with a gaze of love, and trust. Only a moment thus, andinstinctively their glance turned toward the lake. The wolf-pack was inplain view. It was the biggest pack that Wabi, in all his life in thewilderness, had ever seen, and he mentally figured that there were atleast half a hundred animals in it. Like ravenous dogs after having afew scraps of meat flung among them, the wolves were running about, nosing here and there, as if hoping to find a morsel that might haveescaped discovery. Then one of them stopped on the trail and, throwinghimself half on his haunches, with his head turned to the sky like abaying hound, started the hunt-cry. 

"There's two packs. I thought it was too big for one, " exclaimed theIndian. "See! Part of them are taking up the trail and the others arelagging behind gnawing the bones of the dead wolf. Now if we only hadour ammunition and the other gun those murderers got away from us, we'dmake a fortune. What--"

Wabi stopped with a suddenness that spoke volumes, and the supportingarm that he had thrown around Rod's waist tightened until it caused thewounded youth to flinch. Both boys stared in rigid silence. The wolveswere crowding around a spot in the snow half-way between the tamarackrefuge and the scene of the recent feast. The starved animals betrayedunusual excitement. They had struck the pool of blood and red trail madeby the dying moose!

"What is it, Wabi?" whispered Rod. 

The Indian did not answer. His black eyes gleamed with a new fire, hislips were parted in anxious anticipation, and he seemed hardly tobreathe in his tense interest. The wounded boy repeated his question, and as if in reply the pack swerved to the west and in a black silentmass swept in a direction that would bring them into the tamaracks ahundred yards from the young hunters. 

"A new trail!" breathed Wabi. "A new trail, and a hot one! Listen! Theymake no sound. It is always that way when they are close to a kill!"

As they looked the last of the wolves disappeared in the forest. For afew moments there was silence, then a chorus of howls came from deep inthe woods behind them. 

"Now is our chance, " cried the Indian. "They've broken again, and theirgame--"

He had partly slipped from his limb, withdrawing his supporting arm fromRod's waist, and was about to descend to the ground when the pack againturned in their direction. A heavy crashing in the underbrush not adozen rods away sent Wabi in a hurried scramble for his perch. 

"Quick--higher up!" he warned excitedly. "They're coming out here--rightunder us! If we can get up so that they can't see us, or smell us--"

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a huge shadowy bulk rushedpast them not more than fifty feet from the spruce in which they hadsought refuge. Both of the boys recognized it as a bull moose, though itdid not occur to either of them that it was the same animal at whichWabi had taken a long shot that same day a couple of miles back. Inclose pursuit came the ravenous pack. Their heads hung close to thebloody trail, hungry, snarling cries coming from between their gapingjaws, they swept across the little opening almost at the young hunters'feet. It was a sight which Rod had never expected to see, and one whichheld even the more experienced Wabi fascinated. Not a sound fell fromeither of the youths' lips as they stared down upon the fierce, hungryoutlaws of the wilderness. To Wabi this near view of the pack told afateful story; to Rod it meant nothing more than the tragedy about to beenacted before his eyes. The Indian's keen vision saw in the whitemoonlight long, thin bodies, starved almost to skin and bone; to hiscompanion the onrushing pack seemed filled only with agile, powerfulbeasts, maddened to almost fiendish exertions by the nearness of theirprey. 

In a flash they were gone, but in that moment of their passing there waspainted a picture to endure a lifetime in the memory of Roderick Drew. And it was to be followed by one even more tragic, even more thrilling. To the dazed, half-fainting young hunter it seemed but another instantbefore the pack overhauled the old bull. He saw the doomed monster turn, in the stillness heard the snapping of jaws, the snarling ofhunger-crazed animals, and a sound that might have been a great, heavingmoan or a dying bellow. In Wabi's veins the blood danced with theexcitement that stirred his forefathers to battle. Not a line of thetragedy that was being enacted before his eyes escaped this native sonof the wilderness. It was a magnificent fight! He knew that the old bullwould die by inches in the one-sided duel, and that when it was overthere would be more than one carcass for the survivors to gorgethemselves upon. Quietly he reached up and touched his companion. 

"Now is our time, " he said. "Come on--still--and on this side of thetree!"

He slipped down, foot by foot, assisting Rod as he did so, and when bothhad reached the ground he bent over as before, that the other might getupon his back. 

"I can make it alone, Wabi, " whispered the wounded boy. "Give me a lifton the arm, will you?"

With the Indian's arm about his waist, the two set off into thetamaracks. Fifteen minutes later they came to the bank of a small frozenriver. On the opposite side of this, a hundred yards down, was a sightwhich both, as if by a common impulse, welcomed with a glad cry. Closeto the shore, sheltered by a dense growth of spruce, was a brightcamp-fire. In response to Wabi's far-reaching whoop a shadowy figureappeared in the glow and returned the shout. 

"Mukoki!" cried the Indian. 

"Mukoki!" laughed Rod, happy that the end was near. 

Even as he spoke he swayed dizzily, and Wabi dropped his gun that hemight keep his companion from falling into the snow. 

CHAPTER II

HOW WABIGOON BECAME A WHITE MAN

Had the young hunters the power of looking into the future, theircamp-fire that night on the frozen Ombabika might have been one of theirlast, and a few days later would have seen them back on the edges ofcivilization. Possibly, could they have foreseen the happy culminationof the adventures that lay before them, they would still have gone on, for the love of excitement is strong in the heart of robust youth. Butthis power of discernment was denied them, and only in after years, withthe loved ones of their own firesides close about them, was the wholepicture revealed. And in those days, when they would gather with theirfamilies about the roaring logs of winter and live over again theirearly youth, they knew that all the gold in the world would not inducethem to part with their memories of the life that had gone before. 

A little less than thirty years previous to the time of which we write, a young man named John Newsome left the great city of London for the NewWorld. Fate had played a hard game with young Newsome--had first robbedhim of both parents, and then in a single fitful turn of her wheeldeprived him of what little property he had inherited. A little later hecame to Montreal, and being a youth of good education and considerableambition, he easily secured a position and worked himself into theconfidence of his employers, obtaining an appointment as factor atWabinosh House, a Post deep in the wilderness of Lake Nipigon. 

In the second year of his reign at Wabinosh--a factor is virtually kingin his domain--there came to the Post an Indian chief named Wabigoon, and with him his daughter, Minnetaki, in honor of whose beauty andvirtue a town was named in after years. Minnetaki was just budding intothe early womanhood of her race, and possessed a beauty seldom seenamong Indian maidens. If there is such a thing as love at first sight, it sprang into existence the moment John Newsome's eyes fell upon thislovely princess. Thereafter his visits to Wabigoon's village, thirtymiles deeper in the wilderness, were of frequent occurrence. From thebeginning Minnetaki returned the young factor's affections, but a mostpotent reason prevented their marriage. For a long time Minnetaki hadbeen ardently wooed by a powerful young chief named Woonga, whom shecordially detested, but upon whose favor and friendship depended theexistence of her father's sway over his hunting-grounds. 

With the advent of the young factor the bitterest rivalry sprang upbetween the two suitors, which resulted in two attempts upon Newsome'slife, and an ultimatum sent by Woonga to Minnetaki's father. Minnetakiherself replied to this ultimatum. It was a reply that stirred the firesof hatred and revenge to fever heat in Woonga's breast. One dark night, at the head of a score of his tribe, he fell upon Wabigoon's camp, hisobject being the abduction of the princess. While the attack wassuccessful in a way, its main purpose failed. Wabigoon and a dozen ofhis tribesmen were slain, but in the end Woonga was driven off. 

A swift messenger brought news of the attack and of the old chief'sdeath to Wabinosh House, and with a dozen men Newsome hastened to theassistance of his betrothed and her people. A counter attack was madeupon Woonga and he was driven deep into the wilderness with great loss. Three days later Minnetaki became Newsome's wife at the Hudson Bay Post. 

From that hour dated one of the most sanguinary feuds in the history ofthe great trading company; a feud which, as we shall see, was destinedto live even unto the second generation. 

Woonga and his tribe now became no better than outlaws, and preyed soeffectively upon the remnants of the dead Wabigoon's people that thelatter were almost exterminated. Those who were left moved to thevicinity of the Post. Hunters from Wabinosh House were ambushed andslain. Indians who came to the Post to trade were regarded as enemies, and the passing of years seemed to make but little difference. The feudstill existed. The outlaws came to be spoken of as "Woongas, " and aWoonga was regarded as a fair target for any man's rifle. 

Meanwhile two children came to bless the happy union of Newsome and hislovely Indian wife. One of these, the eldest, was a boy, and in honor ofthe old chief he was named Wabigoon, and called Wabi for short. Theother was a girl, three years younger, and Newsome insisted that she becalled Minnetaki. Curiously enough, the blood of Wabi ran almost pure tohis Indian forefathers, while Minnetaki, as she became older, developedless of the wild beauty of her mother and more of the softer lovelinessof the white race, her wealth of soft, jet black hair and her great darkeyes contrasting with the lighter skin of her father's blood. Wabi, onthe other hand, was an Indian in appearance from his moccasins to thecrown of his head, swarthy, sinewy, as agile as a lynx, and with everyinstinct in him crying for the life of the wild. Yet born in him was aCaucasian shrewdness and intelligence that reached beyond the factorhimself. 

One of Newsome's chief pleasures in life had been the educating of hiswoodland bride, and it was the ambition of both that the littleMinnetaki and her brother be reared in the ways of white children. Consequently both mother and father began their education at the Post;they were sent to the factor's school and two winters were passed inPort Arthur that they might have the advantage of thoroughly equippedschools. The children proved themselves unusually bright pupils, and bythe time Wabi was sixteen and Minnetaki twelve one would not have knownfrom their manner of speech that Indian blood ran in their veins. Yetboth, by the common desire of their parents, were familiar with the lifeof the Indian and could talk fluently the tongue of their mother'speople. 

It was at about this time in their lives that the Woongas becameespecially daring in their depredations. These outlaws no longerpretended to earn their livelihood by honest means, but preyed upontrappers and other Indians without discrimination, robbing and killingwhenever safe opportunities offered themselves. The hatred for thepeople of Wabinosh House became hereditary, and the Woonga children grewup with it in their hearts. The real cause of the feud had beenforgotten by many, though not by Woonga himself. At last so daring didhe become that the provincial government placed a price upon his headand upon those of a number of his most notorious followers. For a timethe outlaws were driven from the country, but the bloodthirsty chiefhimself could not be captured. 

When Wabi was seventeen years of age it was decided that he should besent to some big school in the States for a year. Against this plan theyoung Indian--nearly all people regarded him as an Indian, and Wabi wasproud of the fact--fought with all of the arguments at his command. Heloved the wilds with the passion of his mother's race. His naturerevolted at the thoughts of a great city with its crowded streets, itsnoise, and bustle, and dirt. It was then that Minnetaki pleaded withhim, begged him to go for just one year, and to come back and tell herof all he had seen and teach her what he had learned. Wabi loved hisbeautiful little sister beyond anything else on earth, and it was shemore than his parents who finally induced him to go. 

For three months Wabi devoted himself faithfully to his studies inDetroit. But each week added to his loneliness and his longings forMinnetaki and his forests. The passing of each day became a painful taskto him. To Minnetaki he wrote three times each week, and three timeseach week the little maiden at Wabinosh House wrote long, cheeringletters to her brother--though they came to Wabi only about twice amonth, because only so often did the mail-carrier go out from the Post. 

It was at this time in his lonely school life that Wabigoon becameacquainted with Roderick Drew. Roderick, even as Wabi fancied himself tobe just at this time, was a child of misfortune. His father had diedbefore he could remember, and the property he had left had dwindledslowly away during the passing of years. Rod was spending his last weekin school when he met Wabigoon. Necessity had become his grim master, and the following week he was going to work. As the boy described thesituation to his Indian friend, his mother "had fought to the last ditchto keep him in school, but now his time was up. " Wabi seized upon thewhite youth as an oasis in a vast desert. After a little the two becamealmost inseparable, and their friendship culminated in Wabi's going tolive in the Drew home. Mrs. Drew was a woman of education andrefinement, and her interest in Wabigoon was almost that of a mother. Inthis environment the ragged edges were smoothed away from the Indianboy's deportment, and his letters to Minnetaki were more and more filledwith enthusiastic descriptions of his new friends. After a little Mrs. Drew received a grateful letter of thanks from the princess mother atWabinosh House, and thus a pleasant correspondence sprang up between thetwo. 

There were now few lonely hours for the two boys. During the long winterevenings, when Roderick was through with his day's work and Wabi hadcompleted his studies, they would sit before the fire and the Indianyouth would describe the glorious life of the vast northern wilderness;and day by day, and week by week, there steadily developed within Rod'sbreast a desire to see and live that life. A thousand plans were made, athousand adventures pictured, and the mother would smile and laugh andplan with them. 

But in time the end of it all came, and Wabi went back to the princessmother, to Minnetaki, and to his forests. There were tears in the boys'eyes when they parted, and the mother cried for the Indian boy who wasreturning to his people. Many of the days that followed were painful toRoderick Drew. Eight months had bred a new nature in him, and when Wabileft it was as if a part of his own life had gone with him. Spring cameand passed, and then summer. Every mail from Wabinosh House broughtletters for the Drews, and never did an Indian courier drop a pack atthe Post that did not carry a bundle of letters for Wabigoon. 

Then in the early autumn, when September frosts were turning the leavesof the North to red and gold, there came the long letter from Wabi whichbrought joy, excitement and misgiving into the little home of the motherand her son. It was accompanied by one from the factor himself, anotherfrom the princess mother, and by a tiny note from Minnetaki, who pleadedwith the others that Roderick and Mrs. Drew might spend the winter withthem at Wabinosh House. 

"You need not fear about losing your position. " wrote Wabigoon. "Weshall make more money up here this winter than you could earn in Detroitin three years. We will hunt wolves. The country is alive with them, andthe government gives a bounty of fifteen dollars for every scalp taken. Two winters ago I killed forty and I did not make a business of it atthat. I have a tame wolf which we use as a decoy. Don't bother about agun or anything like that. We have everything here. "

For several days Mrs. Drew and her son deliberated upon the situationbefore a reply was sent to the Newsomes. Roderick pleaded, pictured theglorious times they would have, the health that it would give them, andmarshaled in a dozen different ways his arguments in favor of acceptingthe invitation. On the other hand, his mother was filled with doubt. Their finances were alarmingly low, and Rod would be giving up a surethough small income, which was now supporting them comfortably. Hisfuture was bright, and that winter would see him promoted to ten dollarsa week in the mercantile house where he was employed. In the end theycame to an understanding. Mrs. Drew would not go to Wabinosh House, butshe would allow Roderick to spend the winter there--and word to thiseffect was sent off into the wilderness. 

Three weeks later came Wabigoon's reply. On the tenth of October hewould meet Rod at Sprucewood, on the Black Sturgeon River. Thence theywould travel by canoe up the Sturgeon River to Sturgeon Lake, takeportage to Lake Nipigon, and arrive at Wabinosh House before the ice ofearly winter shut them in. There was little time to lose in makingpreparations, and the fourth day following the receipt of Wabi's letterfound Rod and his mother waiting for the train which was to whirl theboy into his new life. Not until the eleventh did he arrive atSprucewood. Wabi was there to meet him, accompanied by an Indian fromthe Post; and that same afternoon the journey up Black Sturgeon Riverwas begun. 

CHAPTER III

RODERICK SEES THE FOOTPRINT

Rod was now plunged for the first time in his life into the heart of theWilderness. Seated in the bow of the birch-bark canoe which was carryingthem up the Sturgeon, with Wabi close behind him, he drank in the wildbeauties of the forests and swamps through which they slipped almost asnoiselessly as shadows, his heart thumping in joyous excitement, hiseyes constantly on the alert for signs of the big game which Wabi toldhim was on all sides of them. Across his knees, ready for instant use, was Wabi's repeating rifle. The air was keen with the freshness left bynight frosts. At times deep masses of gold and crimson forests shut themin, at others, black forests of spruce came down to the river's edge;again they would pass silently through great swamps of tamaracks. Inthis vast desolation there was a mysterious quiet, except for theoccasional sounds of wild life. Partridges drummed back in the woods, flocks of ducks got up with a great rush of wings at almost every turn, and once, late in the morning of the first day out, Rod was thrilled bya crashing in the undergrowth scarcely a stone's throw from the canoe. He could see saplings twisting and bending, and heard Wabi whisperbehind him:

"A moose!"

They were words to set his hands trembling and his whole body quiveringwith anticipation. There was in him now none of the old hunter'scoolness, none of the almost stoical indifference with which the men ofthe big North hear these sounds of the wild things about them. Rod hadyet to see his first big game. 

That moment came in the afternoon. The canoe had skimmed lightly arounda bend in the river. Beyond this bend a mass of dead driftwood hadwedged against the shore, and this driftwood, as the late sun sankbehind the forests, was bathed in a warm yellow glow. And basking inthis glow, as he loves to do at the approach of winter nights, was ananimal, the sight of which drew a sharp, excited cry from between Rod'slips. In an instant he had recognized it as a bear. The animal was takencompletely by surprise and was less than half a dozen rods away. Quickas a flash, and hardly realizing what he was doing, the boy drew hisrifle to his shoulder, took quick aim and fired. The bear was alreadyclambering up the driftwood, but stopped suddenly at the report, slippedas if about to fall back--then continued his retreat. 

"You hit 'im!" shouted Wabi. "Quick-try 'im again!"

Rod's second shot seemed to have no effect In his excitement he jumpedto his feet, forgetting that he was in a frail canoe, and took a lastshot at the big black beast that was just about to disappear over theedge of the driftwood. Both Wabi and his Indian companion flungthemselves on the shore side of their birch and dug their paddles deepinto the water, but their efforts were unavailing to save their recklesscomrade. Unbalanced by the concussion of his gun, Rod plunged backwardinto the river, but before he had time to sink, Wabi reached over andgrabbed him by the arm. 

"Don't make a move--and hang on to the gun!" he warned. "If we try toget you in here we'll all go over!" He made a sign to the Indian, whoswung the canoe slowly inshore. Then he grinned down into Rod'sdripping, unhappy face. 

"By George, that last shot was a dandy for a tenderfoot! You got yourbear!"

Despite his uncomfortable position, Rod gave a whoop of joy, and nosooner did his feet touch solid bottom than he loosened himself fromWabi's grip and plunged toward the driftwood. On its very top he foundthe bear, as dead as a bullet through its side and another through itshead could make it. Standing there beside his first big game, drippingand shivering, he looked down upon the two who were pulling their canoeashore and gave, a series of triumphant whoops that could have beenheard half a mile away. 

"It's camp and a fire for you, " laughed Wabi, hurrying up to him. "Thisis better luck than I thought you'd have, Rod. We'll have a gloriousfeast to-night, and a fire of this driftwood that will show you whatmakes life worth the living up here in the North. Ho, Muky, " he calledto the old Indian, "cut this fellow up, will you? I'll make camp. "

"Can we keep the skin?" asked Rod. "It's my first, you know, and--"

"Of course we can. Give us a hand with the fire, Rod; it will keep youfrom catching cold. "

In the excitement of making their first camp, Rod almost forgot that hewas soaked to the skin, and that night was falling about them. The firststep was the building of a fire, and soon a great, crackling, almostsmokeless blaze was throwing its light and heat for thirty feet around. Wabi now brought blankets from the canoe, stripped off a part of his ownclothes, made Rod undress, and soon had that youth swathed in dry togs, while his wet ones were hung close up to the fire. For the first timeRod saw the making of a wilderness shelter. Whistling cheerily, Wabi gotan ax from the canoe, went into the edge of the cedars and cut armfulafter armful of saplings and boughs. Tying his blankets about himself, Rod helped to carry these, a laughable and grotesque figure as hestumbled about clumsily in his efforts. Within half an hour the cedarshelter was taking form. Two crotched saplings were driven into theground eight feet apart, and from one to the other, resting in thecrotches, was placed another sapling, which formed the ridge-pole; andfrom this pole there ran slantwise to the earth half a dozen others, making a framework upon which the cedar boughs were piled. By the timethe old Indian had finished his bear the home was completed, and withits beds of sweet-smelling boughs, the great camp-fire in front and thedense wilderness about them growing black with the approach of night, Rod thought that nothing in picture-book or story could quite equal thereality of that moment. And when, a few moments later, great bear-steakswere broiling over a mass of coals, and the odor of coffee mingled withthat of meal-cakes sizzling on a heated stone, he knew that his dearestdreams had come true. 

That night in the glow of the camp-fire Rod listened to the thrillingstories of Wabi and the old Indian, and lay awake until nearly dawn, listening to the occasional howl of a wolf, mysterious splashings in theriver and the shrill notes of the night birds. There were variedexperiences in the following three days: one frosty morning before theothers were awake he stole out from the camp with Wabi's rifle and shottwice at a red deer--which he missed both times; there was an excitingbut fruitless race with a swimming caribou in Sturgeon Lake, at whichWabi himself took three long-range shots without effect. 

It was on a glorious autumn afternoon that Wabi's keen eyes firstdescried the log buildings of the Post snuggled in the edge of theseemingly unending forest. As they approached he joyfully pointed outthe different buildings to Rod--the Company store, the little cluster ofemployees' homes and the factor's house, where Rod was to meet hiswelcome. At least Roderick himself had thought it would be there. But asthey came nearer a single canoe shot out suddenly from the shore and theyoung hunters could see a white handkerchief waving them greeting. Wabireplied with a whoop of pleasure and fired his gun into the air. 

"It's Minnetaki!" he cried. "She said she would watch for us and comeout to meet us!"

Minnetaki! A little nervous thrill shot through Rod. Wabi had describedher to him a thousand times in those winter evenings at home; with abrother's love and pride he had always brought her into their talks andplans, and somehow, little by little, Rod had grown to like her verymuch without ever having seen her. 

The two canoes swiftly approached each other, and in a few minutes morewere alongside. With a glad laughing cry Minnetaki leaned over andkissed her brother, while at the same time her dark eyes shot a curiousglance at the youth of whom she had read and heard so much. 

At this time Minnetaki was fifteen. Like her mother's race she wasslender, of almost woman's height, and unconsciously as graceful as afawn in her movements. A slightly waving wealth of raven hair framedwhat Rod thought to be one of the prettiest faces he had ever seen, andentwined in the heavy silken braid that fell over her shoulder were anumber of red autumn leaves. As she straightened herself in her canoeshe looked at Rod and smiled, and he in making a polite effort to lifthis cap in civilized style, lost that article of apparel in a suddengust of wind. In an instant there was a general laugh of merriment inwhich even the old Indian joined. The little incident did more towardmaking comradeship than anything else that might have happened, andlaughing again into Rod's face Minnetaki urged her canoe toward thefloating cap. 

"You shouldn't wear such things until it gets cold, " she said, afterretrieving the cap and handing it to him. "Wabi does--but I don't!"

"Then I won't, " replied Rod gallantly, and at Wabi's burst of laughterboth blushed. 

That first night at the Post Rod found that Wabi had already made allplans for the winter's hunting, and the white youth's complete equipmentwas awaiting him in the room assigned to him in the factor's house--adeadly looking five-shot Remington, similar to Wabi's, a long-barreled, heavy-caliber revolver, snow-shoes, and a dozen other articles necessaryto one about to set out upon a long expedition in the wilderness. Wabihad also mapped out their hunting-grounds. Wolves in the immediateneighborhood of the Post, where they were being constantly sought by theIndians and the factor's men, had become exceedingly cautious and werenot numerous, but in the almost untraveled wilderness a hundred miles tothe north and east they were literally overrunning the country, killingmoose, caribou and deer in great numbers. 

In this region Wabi planned to make their winter quarters. And no timewas to be lost in taking up the trail, for the log house in which theywould pass the bitterly cold months should be built before the heavysnows set in. It was therefore decided that the young hunters shouldstart within a week, accompanied by Mukoki, the old Indian, a cousin ofthe slain Wabigoon, whom Wabi had given the nickname of Muky and who hadbeen a faithful comrade to him from his earliest childhood. 

Rod made the most of the six days which were allotted to him at thePost, and while Wabi helped to handle the affairs of the Company's storeduring a short absence of his father at Port Arthur, the lovely littleMinnetaki gave our hero his first lessons in woodcraft. In canoe, withthe rifle, and in reading the signs of forest life Wabi's sisterawakened constantly increasing admiration in Rod. To see her bendingover some freshly made trail, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparklingwith excitement, her rich hair filled with the warmth of the sun, was apicture to arouse enthusiasm even in the heart of a youngster ofeighteen, and a hundred times the boy mentally vowed that "she was abrick" from the tips of her pretty moccasined feet to the top of herprettier head. Half a dozen times at least he voiced this sentiment toWabi, and Wabi agreed with great enthusiasm. In fact, by the time theweek was almost gone Minnetaki and Rod had become great chums, and itwas not without some feeling of regret that the young wolf huntergreeted the dawn of the day that was to see them begin their journeydeeper into the wilds. 

Minnetaki was one of the earliest risers at the Post. Rod was seldombehind her. But on this particular morning he was late and heard thegirl whistling outside half an hour before he was dressed--for Minnetakicould whistle in a manner that often filled him with envy. By the timehe came down she had disappeared in the edge of the forest, and Wabi, who was also ahead of him, was busy with Mukoki tying up their equipmentin packs. It was a glorious morning, clear and frosty, and Rod noticedthat a thin shell of ice had formed on the lake during the night. Onceor twice Wabi turned toward the forest and gave his signal whoop, butreceived no reply. 

"I don't see why Minnetaki doesn't come back, " he remarked carelessly, as he fastened a shoulder-strap about a bundle. "Breakfast will be readyin a jiffy. Hunt her up, will you, Rod?"

Nothing loath, Rod started out on a brisk run along the path which heknew to be a favorite with Minnetaki and shortly it brought him down toa pebbly stretch of the beach where she frequently left her canoe. Thatshe had been here a few minutes before he could tell by the fact thatthe ice about the birch-bark was broken, as though the girl had testedits thickness by shoving the light craft out into it for a few feet. Herfootsteps led plainly up the shelving shore and into the forest. 

"O Minnetaki--Minnetaki!"

Rod called loudly and listened. There was no response. As if impelled bysome presentiment which he himself could not explain, the boy hurrieddeeper into the forest along the narrow path which Minnetaki must havetaken. Five minutes--ten minutes--and he called again. Still there wasno answer. Possibly the girl had not gone so far, or she might have leftthe path for the thick woods. A little farther on there was a soft spotin the path where a great tree-trunk had rotted half a century before, leaving a rich black soil. Clearly traced in this were the imprints ofMinnetaki's moccasins. For a full minute Rod stopped and listened, making not a sound. Why he maintained silence he could not haveexplained. But he knew that he was half a mile from the Post, and thatWabi's sister should not be here at breakfast time. In this minute'squiet he unconsciously studied the tracks in the ground. How small thepretty Indian maiden's feet were! And he noticed, too, that hermoccasins, unlike most moccasins, had a slight heel. 

But in a moment more his inspection was cut short. Was that a cry heheard far ahead? His heart seemed to stop beating, his bloodthrilled--and in another instant he was running down the path like adeer. Twenty rods beyond this point the path entered an opening in theforest made by a great fire, and half-way across this opening the youthsaw a sight which chilled him to the marrow. There was Minnetaki, herlong hair tumbling loosely down her back, a cloth tied around herhead--and on either side an Indian dragging her swiftly toward theopposite forest!

For as long as he might have drawn three breaths Rod stood transfixedwith horror. Then his senses returned to him, and every muscle in hisbody seemed to bound with action. For days he had been practising withhis revolver and it was now in the holster at his side. Should he useit? Or might he hit Minnetaki? At his feet he saw a club and snatchingthis up he sped across the opening, the soft earth holding the sound ofhis steps. When he was a dozen feet behind the Indians Minnetakistumbled in a sudden effort to free herself, and as one of her captorshalf turned to drag her to her feet he saw the enraged youth, clubuplifted, bearing down upon them like a demon. A terrific yell from Rod, a warning cry from the Indian, and the fray began. With crushing force, the boy's club fell upon the shoulder of the second Indian, and beforehe could recover from the delivery of this blow the youth was caught ina choking, deadly grip by the other from behind. 

Freed by the sudden attack, Minnetaki tore away the cloth that bound hereyes and mouth. As quick as a flash she took in the situation. At herfeet the wounded Indian was half rising, and upon the ground near him, struggling in close embrace, were Rod and the other. She saw theIndian's fatal grip upon her preserver's throat, the whitening face andwide-open eyes, and with a great, sobbing cry she caught up the fallenclub and brought it down with all her strength upon the redskin's head. Twice, three times the club rose and fell, and the grip on Rod's throatrelaxed. A fourth time it rose, but this time was caught from behind, and a huge hand clutched the brave girl's throat so that the cry on herlips died in a gasp. But the relief gave Rod his opportunity. With atremendous effort he reached his pistol holster, drew out the gun, andpressed it close up against his assailant's body. There was a muffledreport and with a shriek of agony the Indian pitched backward. Hearingthe shot and seeing the effect upon his comrade, the second Indianreleased his hold on Minnetaki and ran for the forest. Rod, seeingMinnetaki fall in a sobbing, frightened heap, forgot all else but to runto her, smooth back her hair and comfort her with all of the assurancesat his boyish command. 

It was here that Wabi and the old Indian guide found them five minuteslater. Hearing Rod's first piercing yell of attack, they had raced intothe forest, afterward guided by the two or three shrill screams whichMinnetaki had unconsciously emitted during the struggle. Close behindthem, smelling trouble, followed two of the Post employees. 

The attempted abduction of Wabi's sister, Rod's heroic rescue and thedeath of one of the captors, who was recognized as one of Woonga's men, caused a seven-day sensation at the Post. 

There was now no thought of leaving on the part of the young wolfhunters. It was evident that Woonga was again in the neighborhood, andWabi and Rod, together with a score of Indians and hunters, spent daysin scouring the forests and swamps. But the Woongas disappeared assuddenly as they came. Not until Wabi had secured a promise fromMinnetaki that she would no longer go into the forests unaccompanied didthe Indian youth again allow himself to take up their interrupted plans. 

Minnetaki had been within easy calling distance of help when theWoongas, without warning, sprang upon her, smothered her attempted criesand dragged her away, compelling her to walk alone over the soft earthwhere Rod had seen her footsteps, so that any person who followed mightsuppose she was alone and safe. This fact stirred the dozen whitefamilies at the Post into aggressive action, and four of the mostskillful Indian track-hunters in the service were detailed to devotethemselves exclusively to hunting down the outlaws, their operations notto include a territory extending more than twenty miles from WabinoshHouse in any direction. With these precautions it was believed that noharm could come to Minnetaki or other young girls of the Post. 

It was, therefore, on a Monday, the fourth day of November, that Rod, Wabi and Mukoki turned their faces at last to the adventures thatawaited them in the great North. 

CHAPTER IV

RODERICK'S FIRST TASTE OF THE HUNTER'S LIFE

By this time it was bitter cold. The lakes and rivers were frozen deepand a light snow covered the ground. Already two weeks behind theirplans, the young wolf hunters and the old Indian made forced marchesaround the northern extremity of Lake Nipigon and on the sixth day foundthemselves on the Ombabika River, where they were compelled to stop onaccount of a dense snow-storm. A temporary camp was made, and it waswhile constructing this camp that Mukoki discovered signs of wolves. Itwas therefore decided to remain for a day or two and investigate thehunting-grounds. On the morning of the second day Wabi shot at andwounded the old bull moose which met such a tragic end a few hourslater, and that same morning the two boys made a long tour to the northin the hope of finding that they were in a good game country, whichwould mean also that there were plenty of wolves. 

This left Mukoki alone in camp. Thus far, in their desire to cover asmuch ground as possible before the heavy snows came, Wabi and hiscompanions had not stopped to hunt for game and for six days their onlymeat had been bacon and jerked venison. Mukoki, whose prodigiousappetite was second only to the shrewdness with which he stalked game tosatisfy it, determined to add to their larder if possible during theothers' absence, and with this object in view he left camp late in theafternoon to be gone, as he anticipated, not longer than an hour or so. 

With him he carried two powerful wolf-traps slung over his shoulders. Stealing cautiously along the edge of the river, his eyes and ears alertfor game, Mukoki suddenly came upon the frozen and half-eaten carcass ofa red deer. It was evident that the animal had been killed by wolveseither the day or night before, and from the tracks in the snow theIndian concluded that not more than four wolves had participated in theslaughter and feast. That these wolves would return to continue theirbanquet, probably that night, Mukoki's many experiences as a wolf hunterassured him; and he paused long enough to set his traps, afterwardcovering them over with three or four inches of snow. 

Continuing his hunt, the old Indian soon struck the fresh spoor of adeer. Believing that the animal would not travel for any great distancein the deep snow, he swiftly took up the trail. Half a mile farther onhe stopped abruptly with a grunt of unbounded surprise. Another hunterhad taken up the trail!

With increased caution Mukoki now advanced. Two hundred feet more and asecond pair of moccasined feet joined in the pursuit, and a little laterstill a third!

Led on by curiosity more than by the hope of securing a partnershipshare in the quarry, the Indian slipped silently and swiftly through theforest. As he emerged from a dense growth of spruce through which thetracks led him Mukoki was treated to another surprise by almoststumbling over the carcass of the deer he had been following. A briefexamination satisfied him that the doe had been shot at least two hoursbefore. The three hunters had cut out her heart, liver and tongue andhad also taken the hind quarters, leaving the remainder of the carcassand the skin! Why had they neglected this most valuable part of theirspoils? With a new gleam of interest in his eyes Mukoki carefullyscrutinized the moccasin trails. He soon discovered that the Indiansahead of him were in great haste, and that after cutting the choicestmeat from the doe they had started off to make up for lost time byrunning!

With another grunt of astonishment the old Indian returned to thecarcass, quickly stripped off the skin, wrapped in it the fore quartersand ribs of the doe, and thus loaded, took up the home trail. It wasdark when he reached camp. Wabi and Rod had not yet returned. Building ahuge fire and hanging the ribs of the doe on a spit before it, heanxiously awaited their appearance. 

Half an hour later he heard the shout which brought him quickly to whereWabi was holding the partly unconscious form of Rod in his arms. 

It took but a few moments to carry the injured youth to camp, and notuntil Rod was resting upon a pile of blankets in their shack, with thewarmth of the fire reviving him, did Wabi vouchsafe an explanation tothe old Indian. 

"I guess he's got a broken arm, Muky, " he said. "Have you any hotwater?"

"Shot?" asked the old hunter, paying no attention to the question. Hedropped upon his knees beside Rod, his long brown fingers reaching outanxiously. "Shot?"

"No--hit with a club. We met three Indian hunters who were in camp andwho invited us to eat with them. While we were eating they jumped uponour backs. Rod got that--and lost his rifle!"

Mukoki quickly stripped the wounded boy of his garments, baring his leftarm and side. The arm was swollen and almost black and there was a greatbruise on Rod's body a little above the waist. Mukoki was a surgeon bynecessity, a physician such as one finds only in the vast unblazedwildernesses, where Nature is the teacher. Crudely he made hisexamination, pinching and twisting the flesh and bones until Rod criedout in pain, but in the end there was a glad triumph in his voice as hesaid:

"No bone broke--hurt most here!" and he touched the bruise. "Near brokerib--not quite. Took wind out and made great deal sick. Want goodsupper, hot coffee--rub in bear's grease, then be better!"

Rod, who had opened his eyes, smiled faintly and Wabi gave a half-shoutof delight. 

"Not so bad as we thought, eh, Rod?" he cried. "You can't fool Muky! Ifhe says your arm isn't broken--why, it _isn't_, and that's all there isto it. Let me bolster you up in these blankets and we'll soon have asupper that will sizzle the aches out of you. I smell meat--fresh meat!"

With a chuckle of pleasure Mukoki jumped to his feet and ran out towhere the ribs of the doe were slowly broiling over the fire. They werealready done to a rich brown and their dripping juice filled thenostrils with an appetizing odor. By the time Wabi had applied Mukoki'sprescription to his comrade's wounds, and had done them up in bandages, the tempting feast was spread before them. 

As a liberal section of the ribs was placed before him, together withcorn-meal cakes and a cup of steaming coffee, Rod could not suppress ahappy though somewhat embarrassed laugh. 

"I'm ashamed of myself, Wabi, " he said. "Here I've been causing so muchbother, like some helpless kid; and now I find I haven't even the excuseof a broken arm, and that I'm as hungry as a bear! Looks pretty yellow, doesn't it? Just as though I was scared to death! So help me, I almostwish my arm _was_ broken!"

Mukoki had buried his teeth in a huge chunk of fat rib, but he loweredit with a great chuckling grunt, half of his face smeared with the firstresults of his feast. 

"Whole lot sick, " he explained. "Be sick some more--mighty sick! Maybevomit lots!"

"Waugh!" shrieked Wabi. "How is that for cheerful news, Rod?" Hismerriment echoed far out into the night. Suddenly he caught himself andpeered suspiciously into the gloom beyond the circle of firelight. 

"Do you suppose they would follow?" he asked. 

A more cautious silence followed, and the Indian youth quickly relatedthe adventures of the day to Mukoki--how, in the heart of the forestseveral miles beyond the lake, they had come upon the Indian hunters, had accepted of their seemingly honest hospitality, and in the midst oftheir meal had suffered an attack from them. So sudden and unexpectedhad been the assault that one of the Indians got away with Rod's rifle, ammunition belt and revolver before any effort could be made to stophim. Wabi was under the other two Indians when Rod came to hisassistance, with the result that the latter was struck two heavy blows, either with a club or a gun-stock. So tenaciously had the Indian boyclung to his own weapon that his assailants, after a brief struggle, darted into the dense underbrush, evidently satisfied with the whiteboy's equipment. 

"They were of Woonga's people, without a doubt, " finished Wabi. "Itpuzzles me why they didn't kill us. They had half a dozen chances toshoot us, but didn't seem to want to do us any great injury. Either themeasures taken at the Post are making them reform, or--"

He paused, a troubled look in his eyes. Immediately Mukoki told of hisown experience and of the mysterious haste of the three Indians who hadslain the doe. 

"It is certainly curious, " rejoined the young Indian. "They couldn'thave been the ones we met, but I'll wager they belong to the same gang. I wouldn't be surprised if we had hit upon one of Woonga's retreats. We've always thought he was in the Thunder Bay regions to the west, andthat is where father is watching for him now. We've hit the hornets'nest, Muky, and the only thing for us to do is to get out of thiscountry as fast as we can!"

"We'd make a nice pot-shot just at this moment, " volunteered Rod, looking across to the dense blackness on the opposite side of the river, where the moonlight seemed to make even more impenetrable the wall ofgloom. 

As he spoke there came a slight sound from behind him, the commotion ofa body moving softly beyond the wall of spruce boughs, then a curious, suspicious sniffing, and after that a low whine. 

"Listen!"

Wabi's command came in a tense whisper. He leaned close against theboughs, stealthily parted them, and slowly thrust his head through theaperture. 

"Hello, Wolf!" he whispered. "What's up?"

An arm's length away, tied before a smaller shelter of spruce, a gaunt, dog-like animal stood in a rigid listening attitude. An instant'sglance, however, would have assured one that it was not a dog, but afull-grown wolf. From the days of its puppyhood Wabi had taught it inthe ways of dogdom, yet had the animal perversely clung to its wildinstincts. A weakness in that thong, a slip of the collar, and Wolfwould have bounded joyously into the forests to seek for ever the packsof his fathers. Now the babeesh rope was taut, Wolf's muzzle was turnedhalf to the sky, his ears were alert, half-sounding notes rattled in histhroat. 

"There is something near our camp!" announced the Indian boy, drawinghimself back quickly. "Muky--"

He was interrupted by a long mournful howl from the captive wolf. 

Mukoki had jumped to his feet with the alertness of a cat, and now withhis gun in his hand slunk around the edge of the shelter and buriedhimself in the gloom. Roderick lay quiet while Wabi, seizing theremaining rifle, followed him. 

"Lie over there in the dark, Rod, where the firelight doesn't show youup, " he cautioned in a low voice. "Probably it is only some animal thathas stumbled on to our camp, but we want to make sure. "

Ten minutes later the young hunter returned alone. 

"False alarm!" he laughed cheerfully. "There's a part of a carcass of ared deer up the creek a bit. It has been killed by wolves, and Wolfsmells some of his own blood coming in to the feast. Muky has set trapsthere and we may have our first scalp in the morning. "

"Where is Mukoki?"

"On watch. He is going to keep guard until a little after midnight, andthen I'll turn out. We can't be too careful, with the Woongas in theneighborhood. "

Rod shifted himself uneasily. 

"What shall we do--to-morrow?" he asked. 

"Get out!" replied Wabi with emphasis. "That is, if you are able totravel. From what Mukoki tells me, and from what you and I already know, Woonga's people must be in the forests beyond the lake. We'll cut atrail up the Ombabika for two or three days before we strike camp. Youand Muky can start out as soon as it is light enough. "

"And you--" began Rod. 

"Oh, I'm going to take a run back over our old wolf-trail and collectthe scalps we shot to-day. There's a month's salary back there for you, Rod! Now, let's turn in. Good night--sleep tight--and be sure to wake upearly in the morning. "

The boys, exhausted by the adventures of the day, were soon in profoundslumber. And though midnight came, and hour after hour passed betweenthen and dawn, the faithful Mukoki did not awaken them. Never for amoment neglecting his caution the old Indian watched tirelessly over thecamp. With the first appearance of day he urged the fire into a roaringblaze, raked out a great mass of glowing coals, and proceeded to getbreakfast. Wabi discovered him at this task when he awoke from hisslumber. 

"I didn't think you would play this trick on me, Muky, " he said, a flushof embarrassment gathering in his brown face. "It's awfully good of you, and all that, but I wish you wouldn't treat me as if I were a child anylonger, old friend!"

He placed his hand affectionately upon the kneeling Mukoki's shoulder, and the old hunter looked up at him with a happy, satisfied grin on hisweather-beaten visage, wrinkled and of the texture of leather by nearlyfifty years of life in the wilderness. It was Mukoki who had firstcarried the baby Wabi about the woods upon his shoulders; it was he whohad played with him, cared for him, and taught him in the ways of thewild in early childhood, and it was he who had missed him most, withlittle Minnetaki, when he went away to school. All the love in the grimold redskin's heart was for the Indian youth and his sister, and to themMukoki was a second father, a silent, watchful guardian and comrade. This one loving touch of Wabi's hand was ample reward for the longnight's duty, and his pleasure expressed itself in two or three lowchuckling grunts. 

"Had heap bad day, " he replied. "Very much tired. Me feel good--betterthan sleep!" He rose to his feet and handed Wabi the long fork withwhich he manipulated the meat on the spits. "You can tend to that, " headded. "I go see traps. "

Rod, who had awakened and overheard these last remarks, called out fromthe shack:

"Wait a minute, Mukoki. I'm going with you. If you've got a wolf, I wantto see him. "

"Got one sure 'nuff, " grinned the old Indian. 

In a few minutes Rod came out, fully dressed and with a much healthiercolor in his face than when he went to bed the preceding night. He stoodbefore the fire, stretched one arm then the other, gave a slight grimaceof pain, and informed his anxious comrades that he seemed to be as wellas ever, except that his arm and side were very sore. 

Walking slowly, that Rod might "find himself, " as Wabi expressed it, thetwo went up the river. It was a dull gray morning and occasionally largeflakes of snow fell, giving evidence that before the day was faradvanced another storm would set in. Mukoki's traps were not more thanan eighth of a mile from camp, and as the two rounded a certain bend inthe river the old hunter suddenly stopped with a huge grant ofsatisfaction. Following the direction in which he pointed Rod saw a darkobject lying in the snow a short distance away. 

"That's heem!" exclaimed the Indian. 

As they approached, the object became animate, pulling and tearing inthe snow as though in the agonies of death. A few moments more and theywere close up to the captive. 

"She wolf!" explained Mukoki. 

He gripped the ax he had brought with him and approached within a fewfeet of the crouching animal. Rod could see that one of the big steeltraps had caught the wolf on the forward leg and that the other hadburied its teeth in one of the hind legs. Thus held the doomed animalcould make little effort to protect itself and crouched in sullen quiet, its white fangs gleaming in a noiseless, defiant snarl, its eyes shiningwith pain and anger, and with only its thin starved body, which jerkedand trembled as the Indian came nearer, betraying signs of fear. To Rodit might have been a pitiful sight had not there come to him a thoughtof the preceding night and of his own and Wabi's narrow escape from thepack. 

Two or three quick blows of the ax and the wolf was dead. With a skillwhich can only be found among those of his own race, Mukoki drew hisknife, cut deftly around the wolf's head just below the ears, and withone downward, one upward, and two sidewise jerks tore off the scalp. 

Suddenly, without giving a thought to his speech, there shot from Rod, "Is that the way you scalp people?"

Mukoki looked up, his jaw fell--and then he gave the nearest thing to areal laugh that Rod ever heard come from between his lips. When Mukokilaughed it was usually in a half-chuckle, a half-gurgle--something thatneither Rod nor Wabi could have imitated if they had tried steadily fora month. 

"Never scalped white people, " the old Indian shot back. "Father didwhen--young man. Did great scalp business!"

Mukoki had not done chuckling to himself even when they reached camp. 

Scarcely ten minutes were taken in eating breakfast. Snow was alreadybeginning to fall, and if the hunters took up their trail at once theirtracks would undoubtedly be entirely obliterated by midday, which wasthe best possible thing that could happen for them in the Woongacountry. On the other hand, Wabi was anxious to follow back over thewolf-trail before the snow shut it in. There was no danger of theirbecoming separated and lost, for it was agreed that Rod and Mukokishould travel straight up the frozen river. Wabi would overtake thembefore nightfall. 

Arming himself with his rifle, revolver, knife, and a keen-edgedbelt-ax, the Indian boy lost no time in leaving camp. A quarter of anhour later Wabi came out cautiously on the end of the lake where hadoccurred the unequal duel between the old bull moose and the wolves. Asingle glance told him what the outcome of that duel had been. Twentyrods out upon the snow he saw parts of a great skeleton, and a huge pairof antlers. 

As he stood on the arena of the mighty battle, Wabi would have given agreat deal if Rod could have been with him. There lay the heroic oldmoose, now nothing more than a skeleton. But the magnificent head andhorns still remained--the largest head that the Indian youth, in all hiswilderness life, had ever seen--and it occurred to him that if this headcould be preserved and taken back to civilization it would be worth ahundred dollars or more. That the old bull had put up a magnificentfight was easily discernible. Fifty feet away were the bones of a wolf, and almost under the skeleton of the moose were those of another. Theheads of both still remained, and Wabi, after taking their scalps, hurried on over the trail. 

Half-way across the lake, where he had taken his last two shots, werethe skeletons of two more wolves, and in the edge of the spruce foresthe found another. This animal had evidently been wounded farther backand had later been set upon by some of the pack and killed. Half a miledeeper in the forest he came upon a spot where he had emptied fiveshells into the pack and here he found the bones of two more wolves. Hehad seven scalps in his possession when he turned back over the hometrail. 

Beside the remains of the old bull Wabi paused again. He knew that theIndians frequently preserved moose and caribou heads through the winterby keeping them frozen, and the head at his feet was a prize worth somethought. But how could he keep it preserved until their return, monthslater? He could not suspend it from the limb of a tree, as was thecustom when in camp, for it would either be stolen by some passinghunter or spoiled by the first warm days of spring. Suddenly an ideacame to him. Why could it not be preserved in what white hunters calledan "Indian ice-box"? In an instant he was acting upon this inspiration. It was not a small task to drag the huge head to the shelter of thetamaracks, where, safely hidden from view, he made a closer examination. The head was gnawed considerably by the wolves, but Wabi had seen worseones skillfully repaired by the Indians at the Post. 

Under a dense growth of spruce, where the rays of the sun seldompenetrated, the Indian boy set to work with his belt-ax. For an hour anda half he worked steadily, and at the end of that time had dug a hole inthe frozen earth three feet deep and four feet square. This hole he nowlined with about two inches of snow, packed as tight as he could jam itwith the butt of his gun. Then placing in the head he packed snowclosely about it and afterward filled in the earth, stamping upon thehard chunks with his feet. When all was done he concealed the signs ofhis work under a covering of snow, blazed two trees with his ax, andresumed his journey. 

"There is thirty dollars for each of us if there's a cent, " he musedsoftly, as he hurried toward the Ombabika. "That ground won't thaw outuntil June. A moose-head and eight scalps at fifteen dollars each isn'tbad for one day's work, Rod, old boy!"

He had been absent for three hours. It had been snowing steadily and bythe time he reached their old camp the trail left by Rod and Mukoki wasalready partly obliterated, showing that they had secured an early startup the river. 

Bowing his head in the white clouds falling silently about him, Wabistarted in swift pursuit. He could not see ten rods ahead of him, sodense was the storm, and at times one side or the other of the river waslost to view. Conditions could not have been better for their flight outof the Woonga country, thought the young hunter. By nightfall they wouldbe many miles up the river, and no sign would be left behind to revealtheir former presence or to show in which direction they had gone. Fortwo hours he followed tirelessly over the trail, which became more andmore distinct as he proceeded, showing that he was rapidly gaining onhis comrades. But even now, though the trail was fresher and deeper, sodisguised had it become by falling snow that a passing hunter might havethought a moose or caribou had passed that way. 

At the end of the third hour, by which time he figured that he had madeat least ten miles, Wabi sat down to rest, and to refresh himself withthe lunch which he had taken from the camp that morning. He wassurprised at Rod's endurance. That Mukoki and the white boy were stillthree or four miles ahead of him he did not doubt, unless they, too, hadstopped for dinner. This, on further thought, he believed was highlyprobable. 

The wilderness about him was intensely still. Not even the twitter of asnow-bird marred its silence. For a long time Wabi sat as immovable asthe log upon which he had seated himself, resting and listening. Such aday as this held a peculiar and unusual fascination for him. It was asif the whole world was shut out, and that even the wild things of theforest dared not go abroad in this supreme moment of Nature's handiwork, when with lavish hand she spread the white mantle that was to stretchfrom the border to Hudson Bay. 

As he listened there came to him suddenly a sound that forced frombetween his lips a half-articulate cry. It was the clear, ringing reportof a rifle! And following it there came another, and another, until inquick succession he had counted five!

What did it mean? He sprang to his feet, his heart thumping, every nervein him prepared for action. He would have sworn it was Mukoki'srifle--yet Mukoki would not have fired at game! They had agreed uponthat. 

Had Rod and the old Indian been attacked? In another instant Wabi wasbounding over the trail with the speed of a deer. 

CHAPTER V

MYSTERIOUS SHOTS IN THE WILDERNESS

As the Indian youth sped over the trail in the direction of therifle-shots he flung his usual caution to the winds. His blood thrilledwith the knowledge that there was not a moment to lose--that even now, in all probability, he would be too late to assist his friends. Thisfear was emphasized by the absolute silence which followed the fiveshots. Eagerly, almost prayerfully, he listened as he ran for othersounds of battle--for the report of Mukoki's revolver, or the whoops ofthe victors. If there had been an ambush it was all over now. Eachmoment added to his conviction, and as he thrust the muzzle of his gunahead of him, his finger hovering near the trigger and his snow-blindedeyes staring ahead into the storm, something like a sob escaped hislips. 

Ahead of him the stream narrowed until it almost buried itself under amass of towering cedars. The closeness of the forest walls now added tothe general gloom, intensified by the first gray pallor of the Northerndusk, which begins to fall in these regions early in the afternoon ofNovember days. For a moment, just before plunging into the gloomy trailbetween the cedars, Wabi stopped and listened. He heard nothing but thebeating of his own heart, which worked like a trip-hammer within hisbreast. The stillness was oppressive. And the longer he listened themore some invisible power seemed to hold him back. It was not fear, itwas not lack of courage, but--

What was there just beyond those cedars, lurking cautiously in the snowgloom?

With instinct that was almost animal in its unreasonableness Wabi sankupon his knees. He had seen nothing, he had heard nothing; but hecrouched close, until he was no larger than a waiting wolf, and therewas a deadly earnestness in the manner in which he turned his rifle intothe deeper gloom of those close-knit walls of forest. Something wasapproaching, cautiously, stealthily, and with extreme slowness. TheIndian boy felt that this was so, and yet if his life had depended uponit he could not have told why. He huddled himself lower in the snow. Hiseyes gleamed with excitement. Minute after minute passed, and stillthere came no sound. Then, from far up that dusky avenue of cedars, there came the sudden startled chatter of a moose-bird. It was a warningwhich years of experience had taught Wabi always to respect. Perhaps aroving fox had frightened it, perhaps the bird had taken to noisy flightat the near tread of a moose, a caribou, or a deer. But--

To Wabi the soft, quick notes of the moose-bird spelled man! In aninstant he was upon his feet, darting quickly into the sheltering cedarsof the shore. Through these he now made his way with extreme caution, keeping close to the bank of the frozen stream. After a little he pausedagain and concealed himself behind the end of a fallen log. Ahead of himhe could look into the snow gloom between the cedars, and whatever wascoming through that gloom would have to pass within a dozen yards ofhim. Each moment added to his excitement. He heard the chatter of a redsquirrel, much nearer than the moose-bird. Once he fancied that he heardthe striking of two objects, as though a rifle barrel had accidentallycome into contact with the dead limb of a tree. 

Suddenly the Indian youth imagined that he saw something--an indistinctshadow that came in the snow gloom, then disappeared, and came again. Hebrushed the water and snow from his eyes with one of his mittened handsand stared hard and steadily. Once more the shadow disappeared, thencame again, larger and more distinct than before. There was no doubtnow. Whatever had startled the moose-bird was coming slowly, noiselessly. 

Wabi brought his rifle to his shoulder. Life and death hovered with hisanxious, naked finger over the gun trigger. But he was too well trainedin the ways of the wilderness to fire just yet. Yard by yard the shadowapproached, and divided itself into two shadows. Wabi could now see thatthey were men. They were advancing in a cautious, crouching attitude, asthough they expected to meet enemies somewhere ahead of them. Wabi'sheart thumped with joy. There could be no surer sign that Mukoki and Rodwere still among the living, for why should the Woongas employ thiscaution if they had already successfully ambushed the hunters? With thechill of a cold hand at his throat the answer flashed into Wabigoon'sbrain. His friends had been ambushed, and these two Woongas werestealing back over the trail to slay him!

Very slowly, very gently, the young Indian's finger pressed against thetrigger of his rifle. A dozen feet more, and then--

The shadows had stopped, and now drew together as if in consultation. They were not more than twenty yards away, and for a moment Wabi loweredhis rifle and listened hard. He could hear the low unintelligiblemutterings of their conversation. Then there came to him a singleincautious reply from one of the shadows. 

"All right!"

Surely that was not the English of a Woonga! It sounded like--

In a flash Wabi had called softly. 

"Ho, Muky--Muky--Rod!"

In another moment the three wolf hunters were together, silentlywringing one another's hands, the death-like pallor of Rod's face andthe tense lines in the bronzed countenances of Mukoki and Wabigoonplainly showing the tremendous strain they had been under. 

"You shoot?" whispered Mukoki. 

"No!" replied Wabi, his eyes widening in surprise. "Didn't _you_ shoot?"

"No!"

Only the one word fell from the old Indian, but it was filled with a newwarning. Who had fired the five shots? The hunters gazed blankly at oneanother, mute questioning in their eyes. Without speaking, Mukokipointed suggestively to the clearer channel of the river beyond thecedars. Evidently he thought the shots had come from there. Wabi shookhis head. 

"There was no trail, " he whispered. "Nobody has crossed the river. "

"I thought they were there!" breathed Rod. He pointed into the forest. "But Mukoki said no. "

For a long time the three stood and listened. Half a mile back in theforest they heard the howl of a single wolf, and Wabi flashed a curiousglance into the eyes of the old Indian. 

"That's a man's cry, " he whispered. "The wolf has struck a human trail. It isn't mine!"

"Nor ours, " replied Rod. 

This one long howl of the wolf was the only sound that broke thestillness of approaching night. Mukoki turned, and the others followedin his trail. A quarter of a mile farther on the stream became stillnarrower and plunged between great masses of rock which rose into wildand precipitous hills that were almost mountains a little way back. Nolonger could the hunters now follow the channel of the rushing torrent. Through a break in a gigantic wall of rock and huge boulders led thetrail of Rod and Mukoki. Ten minutes more and the three had clambered tothe top of the ridge where, in the lee of a great rock, the remains of afire were still burning. Here the old Indian and his companion hadstruck camp and were waiting for Wabigoon when they heard the shotswhich they, too, believed were those of an ambush. 

A comfortable shelter of balsam had already been erected against therock, and close beside the fire, where Mukoki had dropped it at thesound of the shots, was a large piece of spitted venison. The situationwas ideal for a camp and after the hard day's tramp through the snow theyoung wolf hunters regarded it with expressions of pleasure, in spite ofthe enemies whom they knew might be lurking near them. Both Wabi and Rodhad accepted the place as their night's home, and were stirring up thefire, when their attention was drawn to the singular attitude of Mukoki. The old warrior stood leaning on his rifle, speechless and motionless, his eyes regarding the process of rekindling the fire with mutedisapprobation. Wabi, poised on one knee, looked at him questioningly. 

"No make more fire, " said the old Indian, shaking his head. "No darestay here. Go on--beyond mountain!"

Mukoki straightened himself and stretched a long arm toward the north. 

"River go like much devil 'long edge of mountain, " he continued. "Makeheap noise through rock, then make swamp thick for cow moose--then runthrough mountain and make wide, smooth river once more. We go overmountain. Snow all night. Morning come--no trail for Woonga. We stayhere--make big trail in morning. Woonga follow like devil, ver' plain tosee!"

Wabi rose to his feet, his face showing the keenness of hisdisappointment. Since early morning he had been traveling, even runningat times, and he was tired enough to risk willingly a few dangers forthe sake of sleep and supper. Rod was in even worse condition, thoughhis trail had been much shorter. For a few moments the two boys lookedat each other in silence, neither attempting to conceal the lack offavor with which Mukoki's suggestion was received. But Wabi was too wiseopenly to oppose the old pathfinder. If Mukoki said that it wasdangerous for them to remain where they were during the night--well, itwas dangerous, and it would be foolish of him to dispute it. He knewMukoki to be the greatest hunter of his tribe, a human bloodhound on thetrail, and what he said was law. So with a cheerful grin at Rod, whoneeded all the encouragement that could be given to him, Wabi began thereadjustment of the pack which he had flung from his shoulders a fewminutes before. 

"Mountain not ver' far. Two--t'ree mile, then camp, " encouraged Mukoki. "Walk slow--have big supper. "

Only a few articles had been taken from the toboggan-sled on which thehunters were dragging the greater part of their equipment into thewilderness, and Mukoki soon had these packed again. The threeadventurers now took up the new trail along the top of one of those wildand picturesque ridges which both the Indians and white hunters of thisgreat Northland call mountains. Wabigoon led, weighted under his pack, selecting the clearest road for the toboggan and clipping downobstructing saplings with his keen-edged belt-ax. A dozen feet behindhim followed Mukoki, dragging the sled; and behind the sled, securelytied with a thong of babeesh, or moose-skin rope, slunk the wolf. Rod, less experienced in making a trail and burdened with a lighter pack, formed the rear of the little cavalcade. 

Darkness was now falling rapidly. Though Wabigoon was not more than adozen yards ahead, Rod could only now and then catch a fleeting visionof him through the gloom. Mukoki, doubled over in his harness, washardly more than a blotch in the early night. Only the wolf was nearenough to offer companionship to the tired and down-spirited youth. Rod's enthusiasm was not easily cooled, but just now he mentally wishedthat, for this one night at least, he was back at the Post, with thelovely little Minnetaki relating to him some legend of bird or beastthey had encountered that day. How much pleasanter that would be! Thevision of the bewitching little maiden was suddenly knocked out of hishead in a most unexpected and startling way. Mukoki had paused for amoment and Rod, unconscious of the fact, continued on his journey untilhe tumbled in a sprawling heap over the sled, knocking Mukoki's legscompletely from under him in his fall. When Wabi ran back he found Rodflattened out, face downward, and Mukoki entangled in his site harnesson top of him. 

In a way this accident was fortunate. Wabi, who possessed a Caucasiansense of humor, shook with merriment as he gave his assistance, and Rod, after he had dug the snow from his eyes and ears and had emptied ahandful of it from his neck, joined with him. 

The ridge now became narrower as the trio advanced. On one side, fardown, could be heard the thunderous rush of the river, and from thedirection of the sound Rod knew they were near a precipice. Great bedsof boulders and broken rock, thrown there by some tumultuous upheaval ofpast ages, now impeded their progress, and every step was taken withextreme caution. The noise of the torrent became louder and louder asthey advanced and on one side of him Rod now thought that he coulddistinguish a dim massive shadow towering above them, like theprecipitous side of a mountain. A few steps farther and Mukoki exchangedplaces with Wabigoon. 

"Muky has been here before, " cried Wabi close up to Rod's ear. His voicewas almost drowned by the tumult below. "That's where the river rushesthrough the mountain!"

Rod forgot his fatigue in the new excitement. Never in his wildestdreams of adventure had he foreseen an hour like this. Each step seemedto bring them nearer the edge of the vast chasm through which the riverplunged, and yet not a sign of it could he see. He strained his eyes andears, each moment expecting to hear the warning voice of the oldwarrior. With a suddenness that chilled him he saw the great shadowclose in upon them from the opposite side, and for the first time herealized their position. On their left was the precipice--on their rightthe sheer wall of the mountain! How wide was the ledge along which theywere traveling? His foot struck a stick under the snow. Catching it uphe flung it out into space. For a single instant he paused to listen, but there came no sound of the falling object. The precipice was verynear--a little chill ran up his spine. It was a sensation he had neverexperienced in walking the streets of a city!

Though he could not see, he knew that the ledge was now leading them up. He could hear Wabigoon straining ahead of the toboggan and he began toassist by pushing on the rear of the loaded sled. For half an hour thisupward climb continued, until the sound of the river had entirely diedaway. No longer was the mountain on the right. Five minutes later Mukokicalled a halt. 

"On top mountain, " he said briefly. "Camp here!"

Rod could not repress an exclamation of joy, and Wabigoon, as he threwoff his harness, gave a suppressed whoop. Mukoki, who seemed tireless, began an immediate search for a site for their camp and after a shortbreathing-spell Rod and Wabi joined him. The spot chosen was in theshelter of a huge rock, and while Mukoki cleaned away the snow the younghunters set to work with their axes in a near growth of balsam, cuttingarmful after armful of the soft odorous boughs. Inside of an hour acomfortable camp was completed, with an exhilarating fire throwing itscrackling flames high up into the night before it. 

For the first time since leaving the abandoned camp at the other end ofthe ridge the hunters fully realized how famished they were, and Mukokiwas at once delegated to prepare supper while Wabi and Rod searched inthe darkness for their night's supply of wood. Fortunately quite near athand they discovered several dead poplars, the best fuel in the worldfor a camp-fire, and by the time the venison and coffee were ready theyhad collected a huge pile of this, together with several good-sizedbacklogs. 

Mukoki had spread the feast in the opening of the shelter where the heatof the fire, reflected from the face of the rock, fell upon them ingenial warmth, suffusing their faces with a most comfortable glow. Theheat, together with the feast, were almost overpowering in theireffects, and hardly was his supper completed when Rod felt creeping overhim a drowsiness which he attempted in vain to fight off a littlelonger. Dragging himself back in the shelter he wrapped himself in hisblanket, burrowed into the mass of balsam boughs, and passed quicklyinto oblivion. His last intelligible vision was Mukoki piling logs uponthe fire, while the flames shot up a dozen feet into the air, illuminingto his drowsy eyes for an instant a wild chaos of rock, beyond which laythe mysterious and impenetrable blackness of the wilderness. 

CHAPTER VI

MUKOKI DISTURBS THE ANCIENT SKELETONS

Completely exhausted, every muscle in his aching body still seeming tostrain with exertion, the night was one of restless and uncomfortabledreams for Roderick Drew. While Wabi and the old Indian, veterans inwilderness hardship, slept in peace and tranquillity, the city boy foundhimself in the most unusual and thrilling situations from which he wouldextricate himself with a grunt or sharp cry, several times sitting boltupright in his bed of balsam until he realized where he was, and thathis adventures were only those of dreamland. 

From one of these dreams Rod had aroused himself into drowsywakefulness. He fancied that he had heard steps. For the tenth time heraised himself upon an elbow, stretched, rubbed his eyes, glanced at thedark, inanimate forms of his sleeping companions, and snuggled down intohis balsam boughs again. A few moments later he sat bolt upright. Hecould have sworn that he heard real steps this time--a soft cautiouscrunching in the snow very near his head. Breathlessly he listened. Nota sound broke the silence except the snapping of a dying ember in thefire. Another dream! Once more he settled back, drawing his blanketclosely about him. Then, for a full breath, the very beating of hisheart seemed to cease. 

What was that!

He was awake now, wide awake, with every faculty in him striving toarrange itself. He had heard--a step! Slowly, very cautiously this time, he raised himself. There came distinctly to his ears a light crunchingin the snow. It seemed back of the shelter--then was moving away, thenstopped. The flickering light of the dying fire still played on the faceof the great rock. Suddenly, at the very end of that rock, somethingmoved. 

Some object was creeping cautiously upon the sleeping camp!

For a moment his thrilling discovery froze the young hunter intoinaction. But in a moment the whole situation flashed upon him. TheWoongas had followed them! They were about to fall upon the helplesscamp! Unexpectedly one of his hands came in contact with the barrel ofWabi's rifle. The touch of the cold steel aroused him. There was no timeto awaken his companions. Even as he drew the gun to him he saw theobject grow larger and larger at the end of the rock, until it stoodcrouching, as if about to spring. 

One bated breath--a thunderous report--a snarling scream of pain, andthe camp was awake!

"We're attacked!" cried Rod. "Quick--Wabi--Mukoki!"

The white boy was on his knees now, the smoking rifle still leveledtoward the rocks. Out there, in the thick shadows beyond the fire, abody was groveling and kicking in death agonies. In another instant thegaunt form of the old warrior was beside Rod, his rifle at his shoulder, and over their heads reached Wabigoon's arm, the barrel of his heavyrevolver glinting in the firelight. 

For a full minute they crouched there, breathless, waiting. 

"They've gone!" broke Wabi in a tense whisper. 

"I got one of them!" replied Rod, his voice trembling with excitement. 

Mukoki slipped back and burrowed a hole through the side of the shelter. He could see nothing. Slowly he slipped out, his rifle ready. The otherscould hear him as he went. Foot by foot the old warrior slunk along inthe deep gloom toward the end of the rock. Now he was almost there, now--

The young hunters saw him suddenly straighten. There came to them a lowchuckling grunt. He bent over, seized an object, and flung it in thelight of the fire. 

"Heap big Woonga! Kill nice fat lynx!"

With a wail, half feigned, half real, Rod flung himself back upon thebalsam while Wabi set up a roar that made the night echo. Mukoki's facewas creased in a broad grin. 

"Heap big Woonga--heem!" he repeated, chuckling. "Nice fat lynx shotwell in face. No look like bad man Woonga to Mukoki!"

When Rod finally emerged from his den to join the others his face wasflushed and wore what Wabi described as a "sheepish grin. "

"It's all right for you fellows to make fun of me, " he declared. "Butwhat if they had been Woongas? By George, if we're ever attacked again Iwon't do a thing. I'll let you fellows fight 'em off!"

In spite of the general merriment at his expense, Rod was immenselyproud of his first lynx. It was an enormous creature of its kind, drawnby hunger to the scraps of the camp-fire feast; and it was this animal, as it cautiously inspected the camp, that the young hunter had heardcrunching in the snow. Wolf, whose instinct had told him what a mix-upwould mean, had slunk into his shelter without betraying his whereaboutsto this arch-enemy of his tribe. 

With the craft of his race, Mukoki was skinning the animal while it wasstill warm. 

"You go back bed, " he said to his companions. "I build big fireagain--then sleep. "

The excitement of his adventure at least freed Rod from theunpleasantness of further dreams, and it was late the following morningbefore he awoke again. He was astonished to find that a beautiful sunwas shining. Wabi and the old Indian were already outside preparingbreakfast, and the cheerful whistling of the former assured Rod thatthere was now little to be feared from the Woongas. Without lingering totake a beauty nap he joined them. 

Everywhere about them lay white winter. The rocks, the trees, and themountain behind them were covered with two feet of snow and upon it thesun shone with dazzling brilliancy. But it was not until Rod looked intothe north that he saw the wilderness in all of its grandeur. The camphad been made at the extreme point of the ridge, and stretching awayunder his eyes, mile after mile, was the vast white desolation thatreached to Hudson Bay. In speechless wonder he gazed down upon theunblazed forests, saw plains and hills unfold themselves as his visiongained distance, followed a river until it was lost in the bewilderingpicture, and let his eyes rest here and there upon the glistening, snow-smothered bosoms of lakes, rimmed in by walls of black forest. Thiswas not the wilderness as he had expected it to be, nor as he had oftenread of it in books. It was beautiful! It was magnificent! His heartthrobbed with pleasure as he gazed down on it, the blood rose to hisface in an excited flush, and he seemed hardly to breathe in his tenseinterest. 

Mukoki had come up beside him softly, and spoke in his low gutturalvoice. 

"Twent' t'ousand moose down there--twent' t'ousand caribou-oo! Noman--no house--more twent' t'ousand miles!"

Roderick, even trembling in his new emotion, looked into the oldwarrior's face. In Mukoki's eyes there was a curious, thrilling gleam. He stared straight out into the unending distance as though his keenvision would penetrate far beyond the last of that visibledesolation--on and on, even to the grim and uttermost fastnesses ofHudson Bay. Wabi came up and placed his hand on Rod's shoulder. 

"Muky was born off there, " he said. "Away beyond where we can see. Thosewere his hunting-grounds when a boy. See that mountain yonder? You mighttake it for a cloud. It's thirty miles from here! And that lake downthere--you might think a rifle-shot would reach it--is five miles away!If a moose or a caribou or a wolf should cross it how you could seehim. "

For a few moments longer the three stood silent, then Wabi and the oldIndian returned to the fire to finish the preparation of breakfast, leaving Rod alone in his enchantment. What unsolved mysteries, whatunwritten tragedies, what romance, what treasure of gold that vast Northmust hold! For a thousand, perhaps a million centuries, it had lain thusundisturbed in the embrace of nature; few white men had broken itssolitudes, and the wild things still lived there as they had lived inthe winters of ages and ages ago. 

The call to breakfast came almost as an unpleasant interruption to Rod. But it did not shock his appetite as it had his romantic fancies, and heperformed his part at the morning meal with considerable credit. Wabiand Mukoki had already decided that they would not take up the trailagain that day but would remain in their present camp until thefollowing morning. There were several reasons for this delay. 

"We can't travel without snow-shoes now, " explained Wabi to Rod, "andwe've got to take a day off to teach you how to use them. Then, all thewild things are lying low. Moose, deer, caribou, and especially wolvesand fur animals, won't begin traveling much until this afternoon andto-night, and if we took up the trail now we would have no way oftelling what kind of a game country we were in. And that is theimportant thing just now. If we strike a first-rate game country duringthe next couple days we'll stop and build our winter camp. "

"Then you believe we are far enough away from the Woongas?" asked Rod. 

Mukoki grunted. 

"No believe Woongas come over mountain. Heap good game country backthere. They stay. "

During the meal the white boy asked a hundred questions about the vastwilderness which lay stretched out before them in a great panorama, andin which they were soon to bury themselves, and every answer added tohis enthusiasm. Immediately after they had finished eating Rod expresseda desire to begin his study in snow-shoeing, and for an hour after thatWabi and Mukoki piloted him back and forth along the ridge, instructinghim in this and in that, applauding when he made an especially good dashand enjoying themselves immensely when he took one of his frequenttumbles into the snow. By noon Rod secretly believed that he wasbecoming quite an adept. 

Although the day in camp was an exceedingly pleasant one for Rod, hecould not but observe that at times something seemed to be troublingWabi. Twice he discovered the Indian youth alone within the sheltersitting in silent and morose dejection, and finally he insisted upon anexplanation. 

"I want you to tell me what the trouble is, Wabi, " he demanded. "Whathas gone wrong?"

Wabi jumped to his feet with a little laugh. 

"Did you ever have a dream that bothered you, Rod?" he asked. "Well, Ihad one last night, and since then--somehow--I can't keep from worryingabout the people back at the Post, and especially about Minnetaki. It'sall--what do you call it--bosh? Listen! Wasn't that Mukoki's whistle?"

As he paused Mukoki came running around the end of the rock. 

"See fun!" he cried softly. "Quick--see heem quick!"

He turned and darted toward the precipitous edge of the ridge, closelyfollowed by the two boys. 

"Cari-boo-oo!" he whispered excitedly as they came up beside him. "Cari-boo-oo--making big play!"

He pointed down into the snowy wilderness. Three-quarters of a mileaway, though to Rod apparently not more than a third of that distancefrom where they stood, half a dozen animals were disporting themselvesin a singular fashion in a meadow-like opening between the mountain anda range of forest. It was Rod's first real glimpse of that wonderfulanimal of the North of which he had read so much, the caribou--commonlyknown beyond the Sixtieth Degree as the reindeer; and at this momentthose below him were indulging in the queer play known in the Hudson Bayregions as the "caribou dance. "

"What's the matter with them?" he asked, his voice quivering withexcitement. "What--"

"Making big fun!" chuckled Mukoki, drawing the boy closer to the rockthat concealed them. 

Wabi had thrust a finger in his mouth and now held it above his head, the Indian's truest guide for discovering the direction of the wind. Thelee side of his finger remained cold and damp, while that side uponwhich the breeze fell was quickly dried. 

"The wind is toward us, Muky, " he announced. "There's a fine chance fora shot. You go! Rod and I will stay here and watch you. "

Roderick heard--knew that Mukoki was creeping back to the camp for hisrifle, but not for an instant did his spellbound eyes leave thespectacle below him. Two other animals had joined those in the open. Hecould see the sun glistening on their long antlers as they tossed theirheads in their amazing antics. Now three or four of them would dash awaywith the speed of the wind, as though the deadliest of enemies wereclose behind them. Two or three hundred yards away they would stop withequal suddenness, whirl about in a circle, as though flight wereinterrupted on all sides of them, then tear back with lightning speed torejoin the herd. In twos and threes and fours they performed theseevolutions again and again. But there was another antic that held Rod'seyes, and if it had not been so new and wonderful to him he would havelaughed, as Wabi was doing--silently--behind him. From out of the herdwould suddenly dash one of the agile creatures, whirl about, jump andkick, and finally bounce up and down on all four feet, as thoughperforming a comedy sketch in pantomime for the amusement of itscompanions; and when this was done it would start out in another madflight, with others of the herd at its heels. 

"They are the funniest, swiftest, and shrewdest animals in the North, "said Wabi. "They can smell you over a mountain if the wind is right, andhear you for half a mile. Look!"

He pointed downward over Rod's shoulder. Mukoki had already reached thebase of the ridge and was stealing straight out in the direction of thecaribou. Rod gave a surprised gasp. 

"Great Scott! They'll see him, won't they?" he cried. 

"Not if Mukoki knows himself, " smiled the Indian youth. "Remember thatwe are looking down on things. Everything seems clear and open to us, while in reality it's quite thick down there. I'll bet Muky can't seeone hundred yards ahead of him. He has got his bearings and will go asstraight as though he was on a blazed trail; but he won't see thecaribou until he conies to the edge of the open. "

Each minute now added to Rod's excitement. Each of those minutes broughtthe old warrior nearer his game. Seldom, thought Rod, had such a scenebeen unfolded to the eyes of a white boy. The complete picture--theplayful rompings of the dumb children of the wilderness; the stealthyapproach of the old Indian; every rock, every tree that was to play itspart--all were revealed to their eyes. Not a phase in this drama in wildlife escaped them. Five minutes, ten, fifteen passed. They could seeMukoki as he stopped and lifted a hand to test the wind. Then hecrouched, advancing foot by foot, yard by yard, so slowly that he seemedto be on his hands and knees. 

"He can hear them, but he can't see them!" breathed Wabigoon. "See! Heplaces his ear to the ground! Now he has got his bearings again--asstraight as a die! Good old Muky!"

The old Indian crept on. In his excitement Rod clenched his hands and heseemed to live without breathing. Would Mukoki never shoot? Would he_never_ shoot? He seemed now to be within a stone's throw of the herd. 

"How far, Wabi?"

"Four hundred yards, perhaps five, " replied the Indian. "It's a longshot! He can't see them yet. "

Rod gripped his companion's arm. 

Mukoki had stopped. Down and down he slunk, until he became only a blotin the snow. 

"Now!"

There came a moment of startled silence. In the midst of their play theanimals in the open stood for a single instant paralyzed by a knowledgeof impending danger, and in that instant there came to the young huntersthe report of Mukoki's rifle. 

"No good!" cried Wabi. 

In his excitement he leaped to his feet. The caribou had turned and thewhole eight of them were racing across the open. Another shot, andanother--three in quick succession, and one of the fleeing animals fell, scrambled to its knees--and plunged on again! A fifth shot--the last inMukoki's rifle! Again the wounded animal fell, struggled to itsknees--to its forefeet--and fell again. 

"Good work! Five hundred yards if it was a foot!" exclaimed Wabigoonwith a relieved laugh. "Fresh steak for supper, Rod!"

Mukoki came out into the open, reloading his rifle. Quickly he movedacross the wilderness playground, now crimson with blood, unsheathed hisknife, and dropped upon his knees close to the throat of the slainanimal. 

"I'll go down and give him a little help, Rod, " said Wabi. "Your legsare pretty sore, and it's a hard climb down there; so if you will keepup the fire, Mukoki and I will bring back the meat. "

During the next hour Rod busied himself with collecting firewood for thenight and in practising with his snow-shoes. He was astonished to findhow swiftly and easily he could travel in them, and was satisfied thathe could make twenty miles a day even as a tenderfoot. 

Left to his own thoughts he found his mind recurring once more to theWoongas and Minnetaki. Why was Wabi worried? Inwardly he did not believethat it was a dream alone that was troubling him. There was still somecause for fear. Of that he was certain. And why would not the Woongaspenetrate beyond this mountain? He had asked himself this question ascore of times during the last twenty-four hours, in spite of the factthat both Mukoki and Wabigoon were quite satisfied that they were wellout of the Woonga territory. 

It was growing dusk when Wabi and the old Indian returned with the meatof the caribou. No time was lost in preparing supper, for the huntershad decided that the next day's trail would begin with dawn and probablyend with darkness, which meant that they would require all the rest theycould get before then. They were all eager to begin the winter's hunt. That day Mukoki's eyes had glistened at each fresh track he encountered. Wabi and Rod were filled with enthusiasm. Even Wolf, now and thenstretching his gaunt self, would nose the air with eager suspicion, asif longing for the excitement of the tragedies in which he was to playsuch an important part. 

"If you can stand it, " said Wabi, nodding at Rod over his caribou steak, "we won't lose a minute from now on. Over that country we ought to maketwenty-five or thirty miles to-morrow. We may strike our hunting-groundby noon, or it may take us two or three days; but in either event wehaven't any time to waste. Hurrah for the big camp, I say--and our funbegins!"

It seemed to Rod as though he had hardly fallen asleep that night whensomebody began tumbling him about in his bed of balsam. Opening his eyeshe beheld Wabi's laughing face, illuminated in the glow of a roaringfire. 

"Time's up!" he called cheerily. "Hustle out, Rod. Breakfast is sizzlinghot, everything is packed, and here you are still dreaming of--what?"

"Minnetaki!" shot back Rod with unblushing honesty. 

In another minute he was outside, straightening his disheveled garmentsand smoothing his tousled hair. It was still very dark, but Rod assuredhimself by his watch that it was nearly four o'clock. Mukoki had alreadyplaced their breakfast on a flat rock beside the fire and, according toWabigoon's previous scheme, no time was lost in disposing of it. 

Dawn was just breaking when the little cavalcade of adventurers set outfrom the camp. More keenly than ever Rod now felt the loss of his rifle. They were about to enter upon a hunter's paradise--and he had no gun!His disappointment was acute and he could not repress a confession ofhis feelings to Wabi. The Indian youth at once suggested a happy remedy. They would take turns in using his gun, Rod to have it one day and hethe next; and Wabi's heavy revolver would also change hands, so that theone who did not possess the rifle would be armed with the smallerweapon. This solution of the difficulty lifted a dampening burden fromRod's heart, and when the little party began its descent into thewilderness regions under the mountain the city lad carried the rifle, for Wabi insisted that he have the first "turn. "

Once free of the rock-strewn ridge the two boys joined forces in pullingthe toboggan while Mukoki struck out a trail ahead of them. As it becamelighter Rod found his eyes glued with keen interest to Mukoki'ssnow-shoes, and for the first time in his life he realized what itreally meant to "make a trail. " The old Indian was the most famoustrailmaker as well as the keenest trailer of his tribe, and in thecomparatively open bottoms through which they were now traveling he wasin his element. His strides were enormous, and with each stride he threwup showers of snow, leaving a broad level path behind him in which thesnow was packed by his own weight, so that when Wabi and Rod came tofollow him they were not impeded by sinking into a soft surface. 

Half a mile from the mountain Mukoki stopped and waited for the othersto come up to him. 

"Moose!" he called, pointing at a curious track in the snow. 

Rod leaned eagerly over the track. 

"The snow is still crumbling and falling where he stepped, " said Wabi. "Watch that little chunk, Rod. See--it's slipping--down--down--there! Itwas an old bull--a big fellow--and he passed here less than an hourago. "

Signs of the night carnival of the wild things now became more and morefrequent as the hunters advanced. They crossed and recrossed the trailof a fox; and farther on they discovered where this little pirate ofdarkness had slaughtered a big white rabbit. The snow was covered withblood and hair and part of the carcass remained uneaten. Again Wabiforgot his determination to waste no time and paused to investigate. 

"Now, if we only knew what kind of a fox he was!" he exclaimed to Rod. "But we don't. All we know is that he's a fox. And all fox tracks arealike, no matter what kind of a fox makes them. If there was only somedifference our fortunes would be made!"

"How?" asked Rod. 

Mukoki chuckled as if the mere thought of such a possibility filled himwith glee. 

"Well, that fellow may be an ordinary red fox, " explained the Indianyouth. "If so, he is only worth from ten to twenty dollars; or he may bea black fox, worth fifty or sixty; or what we call a 'cross'--a mixtureof silver and black--worth from seventy-five to a hundred. Or--"

"Heap big silver!" interrupted Mukoki with another chuckle. 

"Yes, or a silver, " finished Wabi. "A poor silver is worth two hundreddollars, and a good one from five hundred to a thousand! Now do you seewhy we would like to have a difference in the tracks? If that was asilver, a black or a 'cross, ' we'd follow him; but in all probability heis red. "

Every hour added to Rod's knowledge of the wilderness and its people. For the first time in his life he saw the big dog-like tracks made bywolves, the dainty hoof-prints of the red deer and the spreadingimprints of a traveling lynx; he pictured the hugeness of the moose thatmade a track as big as his head, discovered how to tell the differencebetween the hoof-print of a small moose and a big caribou, and in almostevery mile learned something new. 

Half a dozen times during the morning the hunters stopped to rest. Bynoon Wabi figured that they had traveled twenty miles, and, althoughvery tired, Rod declared that he was still "game for another ten. " Afterdinner the aspect of the country changed. The river which they had beenfollowing became narrower and was so swift in places that it rushedtumultuously between its frozen edges. Forest-clad hills, huge bouldersand masses of rock now began to mingle again with the bottoms, which inthis country are known as plains. Every mile added to the roughness andpicturesque grandeur of the country. A few miles to the east roseanother range of wild and rugged hills; small lakes became more and morenumerous, and everywhere the hunters crossed and recrossed frozencreeks. 

And each step they took now added to the enthusiasm of Wabi and hiscompanions. Evidences of game and fur animals were plenty. A thousandideal locations for a winter camp were about them, and their progressbecame slow and studied. 

A gently sloping hill of considerable height now lay in their path andMukoki led the ascent. At the top the three paused in joyfulastonishment. At their feet lay a "dip, " or hollow, a dozen acres inextent, and in the center of this dip was a tiny lake partly surroundedby a mixed forest of cedar, balsam and birch that swept back over thehill, and partly inclosed by a meadow-like opening. One might havetraveled through the country a thousand times without discovering thisbit of wilderness paradise hidden in a hilltop. Without speaking Mukokithrew off his heavy pack. Wabi unbuckled his harness and relieved hisshoulders of their burden. Rod, following their example, dropped hissmall pack beside that of the old Indian, and Wolf, straining at hisbabeesh thong, gazed with eager eyes into the hollow as though he, too, knew that it was to be their winter home. 

Wabi broke the silence. 

"How is that, Muky?" he asked. 

Mukoki chuckled with unbounded satisfaction. 

"Ver' fine. No get bad wind--never see smoke--plenty wood--plentywater. "

Relieved of their burdens, and leaving Wolf tied to the toboggan, thehunters made their way down to the lake. Hardly had they reached itsedge when Wabi halted with a startled exclamation and pointed into theforest on the opposite side. 

"Look at that!"

A hundred yards away, almost concealed among the trees, was a cabin. Even from where they stood they could see that it was deserted. Snow wasdrifted high about it. No chimney surmounted its roof. Nowhere was therea sign of life. 

Slowly the hunters approached. It was evident that the cabin was veryold. The logs of which it was built were beginning to decay. A mass ofsaplings had taken root upon its roof, and everything about it gaveevidence that it had been erected many years before. The door, made ofsplit timber and opening toward the lake, was closed; the one window, also opening upon the lake, was tightly barred with lengths of sapling. 

Mukoki tried the door, but it resisted his efforts. Evidently it wasstrongly barred from within. 

Curiosity now gave place to astonishment. 

How could the door be locked within, and the window barred from within, without there being somebody inside?

For a few moments the three stood speechless, listening. 

"Looks queer, doesn't it?" spoke Wabi softly. 

Mukoki had dropped on his knees beside the door. He could hear no sound. Then he kicked off his snow-shoes, gripped his belt-ax and stepped tothe window. 

A dozen blows and one of the bars fell. The old Indian sniffedsuspiciously, his ear close to the opening. Damp, stifling air greetedhis nostrils, but still there was no sound. One after another he knockedoff the remaining bars and thrust his head and shoulders inside. Gradually his eyes became accustomed to the darkness and he pulledhimself in. 

Half-way--and he stopped. 

"Go on, Muky, " urged Wabi, who was pressing close behind. 

There came no answer from the old Indian. For a full minute he remainedpoised there, as motionless as a stone, as silent as death. 

Then, very slowly--inch by inch, as though afraid of awakening asleeping person, he lowered himself to the ground. When he turned towardthe young hunters it was with an expression that Rod had never seen uponMukoki's face before. 

"What is it, Mukoki?"

The old Indian gasped, as if for fresh air. 

"Cabin--she filled with twent' t'ousand dead men!" he replied. 

[Illustration: "Knife--fight--heem killed!"]

CHAPTER VII

RODERICK DISCOVERS THE BUCKSKIN BAG

For one long breath Rod and Wabi stared at their companion, only halfbelieving, yet startled by the strange look in the old warrior's face. 

"Twent' t'ousand dead men!" he repeated. As he raised his hand, partlyto give emphasis and partly to brush the cobwebs from his face, the boyssaw it trembling in a way that even Wabi had never witnessed before. 

"Ugh!"

In another instant Wabi was at the window, head and shoulders in, asMukoki had been before him. After a little he pulled himself back and ashe glanced at Rod he laughed in an odd thrilling way, as though he hadbeen startled, but not so much so as Mukoki, who had prepared him forthe sight which had struck his own vision with the unexpectedness of ashot in the back. 

"Take a look, Rod!"

With his breath coming in little uneasy jerks Rod approached the blackaperture. A queer sensation seized upon him--a palpitation, not of fear, but of something; a very unpleasant feeling that seemed to choke hisbreath, and made him wish that he had not been asked to peer into thatmysterious darkness. Slowly he thrust his head through the hole. It wasas black as night inside. But gradually the darkness seemed to bedispelled. He saw, in a little while, the opposite wall of the cabin. Atable outlined itself in deep shadows, and near the table there was apile of something that he could not name; and tumbled over that was achair, with an object that might have been an old rag half covering it. 

His eyes traveled nearer. Outside Wabi and Mukoki heard a startled, partly suppressed cry. The boy's hands gripped the sides of the window. Fascinated, he stared down upon an object almost within arm's reach ofhim. 

There, leaning against the cabin wall, was what half a century or moreago had been a living man! Now it was a mere skeleton, a grotesque, terrible-looking object, its empty eye-sockets gleaming dully with thelight from the window, its grinning mouth, distorted into ghostly lifeby the pallid mixture of light and gloom, turned full up at him!

Rod fell back, trembling and white. 

"I only saw one, " he gasped, remembering Mukoki's excited estimate. 

Wabi, who had regained his composure, laughed as he struck him two orthree playful blows on the back. Mukoki only grunted. 

"You didn't look long enough, Rod!" he cried banteringly. "He got onyour nerves too quick. I don't blame you, though. By George, I'll betthe shivers went up Muky's back when he first saw 'em! I'm going in toopen the door. "

Without trepidation the young Indian crawled through the window. Rod, whose nervousness was quickly dispelled, made haste to follow him, whileMukoki again threw his weight against the door. A few blows of Wabi'sbelt-ax and the door shot inward so suddenly that the old Indian wentsprawling after it upon all fours. 

A flood of light filled the interior of the cabin. Instinctively Rod'seyes sought the skeleton against the wall. It was leaning as if, manyyears before, a man had died there in a posture of sleep. Quite nearthis ghastly tenant of the cabin, stretched at full length upon the logfloor, was a second skeleton, and near the overturned chair was a smallcluttered heap of bones which were evidently those of some animal. Rodand Wabi drew nearer the skeleton against the wall and were bent uponmaking a closer examination when an exclamation from Mukoki attractedtheir attention to the old pathfinder. He was upon his knees beside thesecond skeleton, and as the boys approached he lifted eyes to them thatwere filled with unbounded amazement, at the same time pointing a longforefinger to come object among the bones. 

"Knife--fight--heem killed!"

Plunged to the hilt in what had once been the breast of a living being, the boys saw a long, heavy-bladed knife, its handle rotting with age, its edges eaten by rust--but still erect, held there by the murderousroad its owner had cleft for it through the flesh and bone of hisvictim. 

Rod, who had fallen upon his knees, gazed up blankly; his jaw dropped, and he asked the first question that popped into his head. 

"Who--did it?"

Mukoki chuckled, almost gleefully, and nodded toward the gruesome thingreclining against the wall. 

"Heem!"

Moved by a common instinct the three drew near the other skeleton. Oneof its long arms was resting across what had once been a pail, butwhich, long since, had sunk into total collapse between its hoops. Thefinger-bones of this arm were still tightly shut, clutching between thema roll of something that looked like birch-bark. The remaining arm hadfallen close to the skeleton's side, and it was on this side thatMukoki's critical eyes searched most carefully, his curiosity beingalmost immediately satisfied by the discovery of a short, slant-wise cutin one of the ribs. 

"This un die here!" he explained. "Git um stuck knife in ribs. Bad waydie! Much hurt--no die quick, sometime. Ver' bad way git stuck!"

"Ugh!" shuddered Rod. "This cabin hasn't had any fresh air in it for acentury, I'll bet. Let's get out!"

Mukoki, in passing, picked up a skull from the heap of bones near thechair. 

"Dog!" he grunted. "Door lock'--window shut--men fight--both kill. Dogstarve!"

As the three retraced their steps to the spot where Wolf was guardingthe toboggan, Rod's imaginative mind quickly painted a picture of theterrible tragedy that had occurred long ago in the old cabin. To Mukokiand Wabigoon the discovery of the skeletons was simply an incident in along life of wilderness adventure--something of passing interest, but ofsmall importance. To Rod it was the most tragic event that had ever comeinto his city-bound existence, with the exception of the thrillingconflict at Wabinosh House. He reconstructed that deadly hour in thecabin; saw the men in fierce altercation, saw them struggling, andalmost heard the fatal blows as they were struck--the blows that slewone with the suddenness of a lightning bolt and sent the other, triumphant but dying, to breathe his last moments with his back proppedagainst the wall. And the dog! What part had he taken? And afterthat--long days of maddening loneliness, days of starvation and ofthirst, until he, too, doubled himself up on the floor and died. It wasa terrible, a thrilling picture that burned in Roderick's brain. But whyhad they quarreled? What cause had there been for that sanguinary nightduel? Instinctively Rod accepted it as having occurred at night, for thedoor had been locked, the window barred. Just then he would have given agood deal to have had the mystery solved. 

At the top of the hill Rod awoke to present realities. Wabi, who hadharnessed himself to the toboggan, was in high spirits. 

"That cabin is a dandy!" he exclaimed as Rod joined him. "It would havetaken us at least two weeks to build as good a one. Isn't it luck?"

"We're going to live in it?" inquired his companion. 

"Live in it! I should say we were. It is three times as big as the shackwe had planned to build. I can't understand why two men like thosefellows should have put up such a large cabin. What do you think, Mukoki?"

Mukoki shook his head. Evidently the mystery of the whole thing, beyondthe fact that the tenants of the cabin had killed themselves in battle, was beyond his comprehension. 

The winter outfit was soon in a heap beside the cabin door. 

"Now for cleaning up, " announced Wabi cheerfully. "Muky, you lend me ahand with the bones, will you? Rod can nose around and fetch outanything he likes. "

This assignment just suited Rod's curiosity. He was now worked up to afeverish pitch of expectancy. Might he not discover some clue that wouldlead to a solution of the mystery?

One question alone seemed to ring incessantly in his head. Why had theyfought? _Why had they fought?_

He even found himself repeating this under his breath as he beganrummaging about. He kicked over the old chair, which was made ofsaplings nailed together, scrutinized a heap of rubbish that crumbled todust under his touch, and gave a little cry of exultation when he foundtwo guns leaning in a corner of the cabin. Their stocks were decaying;their locks were encased with rust, their barrels, too, were thick withthe accumulated rust of years. Carefully, almost tenderly, he took oneof these relics of a past age in his hands. It was of ancient pattern, almost as long as he was tall. 

"Hudson Bay gun--the kind they had before my father was born!" saidWabi. 

With bated breath and eagerly beating heart Rod pursued his search. Onone of the walls he found the remains of what had once beengarments--part of a hat, that fell in a thousand pieces when he touchedit; the dust-rags of a coat and other things that he could not name. Onthe table there were rusty pans, a tin pail, an iron kettle, and theremains of old knives, forks and spoons. On one end of this table therewas an unusual-looking object, and he touched it. Unlike the other ragsit did not crumble, and when he lifted it he found that it was a smallbag, made of buckskin, tied at the end--and heavy! With tremblingfingers he tore away the rotted string and out upon the table thererattled a handful of greenish-black, pebbly looking objects. 

Rod gave a sharp quick cry for the others. 

Wabi and Mukoki had just come through the door after bearing out one oftheir gruesome loads, and the young Indian hurried to his side. Heweighed one of the pieces in the palm of his hand. 

"It's lead, or--"

"Gold!" breathed Rod. 

He could hear his own heart thumping as Wabi jumped back to the light ofthe door, his sheath-knife in his hand. For an instant the keen bladesank into the age-discolored object, and before Rod could see into thecrease that it made Wabi's voice rose in an excited cry. 

"It's a gold nugget!"

"And _that's_ why they fought!" exclaimed Rod exultantly. 

He had hoped--and he had discovered the reason. For a few moments thiswas of more importance to him than the fact that he had found gold. Wabiand Mukoki were now in a panic of excitement. The buckskin bag wasturned inside out; the table was cleared of every other object; everynook and cranny was searched with new enthusiasm. The searchers hardlyspoke. Each was intent upon finding--finding--finding. Thus doesgold--virgin gold--stir up the sparks of that latent, feverish firewhich is in every man's soul. Again Rod joined in the search. Every rag, every pile of dust, every bit of unrecognizable debris was torn, siftedand scattered. At the end of an hour the three paused, hopelesslybaffled, even keenly disappointed for the time. 

"I guess that's all there is, " said Wabi. 

It was the longest sentence that he had spoken for half an hour. 

"There is only one thing to do, boys. We'll clean out everything thereis in the cabin, and to-morrow we'll tear up the floor. You can't tellwhat there might be under it, and we've got to have a new floor anyway. It is getting dusk, and if we have this place fit to sleep in to-nightwe have got to hustle. "

No time was lost in getting the debris of the cabin outside, and by thetime darkness had fallen a mass of balsam boughs had been spread uponthe log floor just inside the door, blankets were out, packs andsupplies stowed away in one corner, and everything "comfortable andshipshape, " as Rod expressed it. A huge fire was built a few feet awayfrom the open door and the light and heat from this made the interior ofthe cabin quite light and warm, and, with the assistance of a couple ofcandles, more home-like than any camp they had slept in thus far. Mukoki's supper was a veritable feast--broiled caribou, cold beans thatthe old Indian had cooked at their last camp, meal cakes and hot coffee. The three happy hunters ate of it as though they had not tasted food fora week. 

The day, though a hard one, had been fraught with too much excitementfor them to retire to their blankets immediately after this meal, asthey had usually done in other camps. They realized, too, that they hadreached the end of their journey and that their hardest work was over. There was no long jaunt ahead of them to-morrow. Their new life--thehappiest life in the world to them--had already begun. Their camp wasestablished, they were ready for their winter's sport, and from thismoment on they felt that their evenings were their own to do with asthey pleased. 

So for many hours that night Rod, Mukoki and Wabigoon sat up and talkedand kept the fire roaring before the door. Twenty times they went overthe tragedy of the old cabin; twenty times they weighed the half-poundof precious little lumps in the palms of their hands, and bit by bitthey built up that life romance of the days of long ago, when all thiswilderness was still an unopened book to the white man. And that storyseemed very clear to them now. These men had been prospectors. They haddiscovered gold. Afterward they had quarreled, probably over somedivision of it--perhaps over the ownership of the very nuggets they hadfound; and then, in the heat of their anger, had followed the knifebattle. 

But where had they discovered the gold? That was the question of supremeinterest to the hunters, and they debated it until midnight. There wereno mining tools in the camp; no pick, shovel or pan. Then it occurred tothem that the builders of the cabin had been hunters, had discoveredgold by accident and had collected that in the buckskin bag without theuse of a pan. 

There was little sleep in the camp that night, and with the first lightof day the three were at work again. Immediately after breakfast thetask of tearing up the old and decayed floor began. One by one the splitsaplings were pried up and carried out for firewood, until the earthfloor lay bare. Every foot of it was now eagerly turned over with ashovel which had been brought in the equipment; the base-logs wereundermined, and filled in again; the moss that had been packed in thechinks between the cabin timbers was dug out, and by noon there was nota square inch of the interior of the camp that had not been searched. 

There was no more gold. 

In a way this fact brought relief with it. Both Wabi and Rod graduallyrecovered from their nervous excitement. The thought of gold graduallyfaded from their minds; the joy and exhilaration of the "hunt life"filled them more and more. Mukoki set to work cutting fresh cedars forthe floor; the two boys scoured every log with water from the lake andafterward gathered several bushels of moss for refilling the chinks. That evening supper was cooked on the sheet-iron "section stove" whichthey had brought on the toboggan, and which was set up where the ancientstove of flat stones had tumbled into ruin. By candle-light the work of"rechinking" with moss progressed rapidly. Wabi was constantly burstinginto snatches of wild Indian song, Rod whistled until his throat wassore and Mukoki chuckled and grunted and talked with constantlyincreasing volubility. A score of times they congratulated one anotherupon their good luck. Eight wolf-scalps, a fine lynx and nearly twohundred dollars in gold--all within their first week! It was enough tofill them with enthusiasm and they made little effort to repress theirjoy. 

During this evening Mukoki boiled up a large pot of caribou fat andbones, and when Rod asked what kind of soup he was making he respondedby picking up a handful of steel traps and dropping them into themixture. 

"Make traps smell good for fox--wolf--fisher, an' marten, too; heemcome--all come--like smell, " he explained. 

"If you don't dip the traps, " added Wabi, "nine fur animals out of ten, and wolves most of all, will fight shy of the bait. They can smell thehuman odor you leave on the steel when you handle it. But the grease'draws' them. "

When the hunters wrapped themselves in their blankets that night theirwilderness home was complete. All that remained to be done was thebuilding of three bunks against the ends of the cabin, and this work itwas agreed could be accomplished at odd hours by any one who happened tobe in camp. In the morning, laden with traps, they would strike outtheir first hunting-trails, keeping their eyes especially open for signsof wolves; for Mukoki was the greatest wolf hunter in all the Hudson Bayregion. 

CHAPTER VIII

HOW WOLF BECAME THE COMPANION OF MEN

Twice that night Rod was awakened by Mukoki opening the cabin door. Thesecond time he raised himself upon his elbows and quietly watched theold warrior. It was a brilliantly clear night and a flood of moonlightwas pouring into the camp. He could hear Mukoki chuckling and grunting, as though communicating with himself, and at last, his curiosity gettingthe better of him, he wrapped his blanket about him and joined theIndian at the door. 

Mukoki was peering up into space. Rod followed his gaze. The moon wasdirectly above the cabin. The sky was clear of clouds and so bright wasthe light that objects on the farther side of the lake were plainlyvisible. 

Besides, it was bitter cold--so cold that his face began to tingle as hestood there. These things he noticed, but he could see nothing to holdMukoki's vision in the sky above unless it was the glorious beauty ofthe night. 

"What is it, Mukoki?" he asked. 

The old Indian looked silently at him for a moment, some mysterious, all-absorbing joy revealed in every lineament of his face. 

"Wolf night!" he whispered. 

He looked back to where Wabi was sleeping. 

"Wolf night!" he repeated, and slipped like a shadow to the side of theunconscious young hunter. Rod regarded his actions with growing wonder. He saw him bend over Wabi, shake him by the shoulders, and heard himrepeat again, "Wolf night! Wolf night!"

Wabi awoke and sat up in his blankets, and Mukoki came back to the door. He had dressed himself before this, and now, with his rifle, slipped outinto the night. The young Indian had joined Rod at the open door andtogether they watched Mukoki's gaunt figure as it sped swiftly acrossthe lake, up the hill and over into the wilderness desolation beyond. 

When Rod looked at Wabi he saw that the Indian boy's eyes were wide andstaring, with an expression in them that was something between frightand horror. Without speaking he went to the table and lighted thecandles and then dressed. When he was done his face still bore traces ofsuppressed excitement. 

He ran back to the door and whistled loudly. From his shelter beside thecabin the captive wolf responded with a snarling whine. Again hewhistled, a dozen times, twenty, but there came no reply. More swiftlythan Mukoki the Indian youth sped across the lake and to the summit ofthe hill. Mukoki had completely disappeared in the white, brilliantvastness of the wilderness that stretched away at his feet. 

When Wabi returned to the cabin Rod had a fire roaring in the stove. Heseated himself beside it, holding out a pair of hands blue with cold. 

"Ugh! It's an awful night!" he shivered. 

He laughed across at Rod, a little uneasily, but with the old light backin his eyes. Suddenly he asked:

"Did Minnetaki ever tell you--anything--queer--about Mukoki, Rod?"

"Nothing more than you have told me yourself. "

"Well, once in a great while Mukoki has--not exactly a fit, but a littlemad spell! I have never determined to my own satisfaction whether he isreally out of his head or not. Sometimes I think he is and sometimes Ithink he is not. But the Indians at the Post believe that at certaintimes he goes crazy over wolves. "

"Wolves!" exclaimed Rod. 

"Yes, wolves. And he has good reason. A good many years ago, just aboutwhen you and I were born, Mukoki had a wife and child. My mother andothers at the Post say that he was especially gone over the kid. Hewouldn't hunt like other Indians, but would spend whole days at hisshack playing with it and teaching it to do things; and when he did gohunting he would often tote it on his back, even when it wasn't muchmore than a squalling papoose. He was the happiest Indian at the Post, and one of the poorest. One day Mukoki came to the Post with a littlebundle of fur, and most of the things he got in exchange for it, mothersays, were for the kid. He reached the store at night and expected toleave for home the next noon, which would bring him to his camp beforedark. But something delayed him and he didn't get started until themorning after. Meanwhile, late in the afternoon of the day when he wasto have been home, his wife bundled up the kid and they set out to meethim. Well--"

A weird howl from the captive wolf interrupted Wabi for a moment. 

"Well, they went on and on, and of course did not meet him. And then, the people at the Post say, the mother must have slipped and hurtherself. Anyway, when Mukoki came over the trail the next day he foundthem half eaten by wolves. From that day on Mukoki was a differentIndian. He became the greatest wolf hunter in all these regions. Soonafter the tragedy he came to the Post to live and since then he has notleft Minnetaki and me. Once in a great while when the night is justright, when the moon is shining and it is bitter cold, Mukoki seems togo a little mad. He calls this a 'wolf night. ' No one can stop him fromgoing out; no one can get him to talk; he will allow no one to accompanyhim when in such a mood. He will walk miles and miles to-night. But hewill come back. And when he returns he will be as sane as you and I, andif you ask him where he has been he will say that he went out to see ifhe could get a shot at something. "

Rod had listened in rapt attention. To him, as Wabi proceeded with hisstory of the tragedy in Mukoki's life, the old Indian was transformedinto another being. No longer was he a mere savage reclaimed a littlefrom the wilderness. There had sprung up in Rod's breast a great, human, throbbing sympathy for him, and in the dim candle-glow his eyesglistened with a dampness which he made no attempt to conceal. 

"What does Mukoki mean by 'wolf night'?" he asked. 

"Muky is a wizard when it comes to hunting wolves, " Wabi went on. "Hehas studied them and thought of them every day of his life for nearlytwenty years. He knows more about wolves than all the rest of thehunters in this country together. He can catch them in every trap hesets, which no other trapper in the world can do; he can tell you ahundred different things about a certain wolf simply by its track, andbecause of his wonderful knowledge he can tell, by some instinct that isalmost supernatural, when a 'wolf night' comes. Something in the airto-night, something in the sky--in the moon--in the very way thewilderness looks, tells him that stray wolves in the plains and hillsare 'packing' or banding together to-night, and that in the morning thesun will be shining, and they will be on the sunny sides of themountains. See if I am not right. To-morrow night, if Mukoki comes backby then, we shall have some exciting sport with the wolves, and then youwill see how Wolf out there does his work!"

There followed several minutes of silence. The fire roared up thechimney, the stove glowed red hot and the boys sat and looked andlistened. Rod took out his watch. It lacked only ten minutes ofmidnight. Yet neither seemed possessed with a desire to return to theirinterrupted sleep. 

"Wolf is a curious beast, " mused Wabi softly. "You might think he was asneaking, traitorous cur of a wolf to turn against his own breed andlure them to death. But he isn't. Wolf, as well as Mukoki, has goodcause for what he does. You might call it animal vengeance. Did you evernotice that a half of one of his ears is gone? And if you thrust backhis head you will find a terrible sear in his throat, and from his leftside just back of the fore leg a chunk of flesh half as big as my handhas been torn away. We caught Wolf in a lynx trap, Mukoki and I. Hewasn't much more than a whelp then--about six months old, Mukoki said. And while he was in the trap, helpless and unable to defend himself, three or four of his lovely tribe jumped upon him and tried to kill himfor breakfast. We hove in sight just in time to drive the cannibals off. We kept Wolf, sewed up his side and throat, tamed him--and to-morrownight you will see how Mukoki has taught him to get even with hispeople. "

It was two hours later when Rod and Wabigoon extinguished the candlesand returned to their blankets. And for another hour after that theformer found it impossible to sleep. He wondered where Mukokiwas--wondered what he was doing, and how in his strange madness he foundhis way in the trackless wilderness. 

When he finally fell asleep it was to dream of the Indian mother and herchild; only after a little there was no child, and the woman changedinto Minnetaki, and the ravenous wolves into men. From this unpleasantpicture he was aroused by a series of prods in his side, and opening hiseyes he beheld Wabi in his blankets a yard away, pointing over andbeyond him and nodding his head. Rod looked, and caught his breath. 

There was Mukoki--peeling potatoes!

"Hello, Muky!" he shouted. 

The old Indian looked up with a grin. His face bore no signs of his madnight on the trail. He nodded cheerfully and proceeded with thepreparation of breakfast as though he had just risen from his blanketsafter a long night's rest. 

"Better get up, " he advised. "Big day's hunt. Much fine sunshine to-day. Find wolves on mountain--plenty wolves!"

The boys tumbled from their blankets and began dressing. 

"What time did you get in?" asked Wabi. 

"Now, " replied Mukoki, pointing to the hot stove and the peeledpotatoes. "Just make fire good. "

Wabi gave Rod a suggestive look as the old Indian bent over the stove. 

"What were you doing last night?" he questioned. 

"Big moon--might get shot, " grunted Mukoki. "See lynx on hill. Seewolf-tracks on red deer trail. No shot. "

This was as much of the history of Mukoki's night on the trail as theboys could secure, but during their breakfast Wabi shot another glanceat Rod, and as Mukoki left the table for a moment to close the damper inthe stove he found an opportunity to whisper:

"See if I'm not right. He will choose the mountain trail. " When theircompanion returned, he said: "We had better split up this morning, hadn't we, Muky? It looks to me as though there are two mighty goodlines for traps--one over the hill, where that creek leads off throughthe range of ridges to the east, and the other along the creek whichruns through the hilly plains to the north. What do you think of it?"

"Good" agreed the old hunter. "You two go north--I take ridges. "

"No, you and I will take the ridges and Wabi will go north alone, "amended Rod quickly. "I'm going with you, Mukoki!"

Mukoki, who was somewhat flattered by this preference of the whiteyouth, grinned and chuckled and began to talk more volubly about theplans which were in his head. It was agreed that they all would returnto the cabin at an early hour in the afternoon, for the old Indianseemed positive that they would have their first wolf hunt that night. 

Rod noticed that the captive wolf received no breakfast that morning, and he easily guessed the reason. 

The traps were now divided. Three different sizes had been brought fromthe Post--fifty small ones for mink, marten and other small fur animals;fifteen fox traps, and as many larger ones for lynx and wolves. Wabiequipped himself with twenty of the small traps and four each of fox andlynx traps, while Rod and Mukoki took about forty in all. The remainderof the caribou meat was then cut into chunks and divided equally amongthem for bait. 

The sun was just beginning to show itself above the wilderness when thehunters left camp. As Mukoki had predicted, it was a glorious day, oneof those bitterly cold, cloudless days when, as the Indians believe, thegreat Creator robs the rest of the world of the sun that it may shine inall its glory upon their own savage land. From the top of the hill thatsheltered their home Rod looked out over the glistening forests andlakes in rapt and speechless admiration; but only for a few moments didthe three pause, then took up their different trails. 

At the foot of this hill Mukoki and his companion struck the creek. Theyhad not progressed more than fifty rods when the old Indian stopped andpointed at a fallen log which spanned the stream. The snow on this logwas beaten by tiny footprints. Mukoki gazed a moment, cast an observanteye along the trail, and at once threw off his pack. 

"Mink!" he explained. He crossed the frozen creek, taking care not totouch the log. On the opposite side the tracks spread out over awindfall of trees. "Whole family mink live here, " continued Mukoki. "T'ree--mebby four--mebby five. Build trap-house right here!"

Never before had Rod seen a trap set as the old Indian now set his. Verynear the end of the log over which the mink made their trail he quicklybuilt a shelter of sticks which when completed was in the form of a tinywigwam. At the back of this was placed a chunk of the caribou meat, andin front of this bait, so that an animal would have to spring it inpassing, was set a trap, carefully covered with snow and a few leaves. Within twenty minutes Mukoki had built two of these shelters and had settwo traps. 

"Why do you build those little houses?" asked Rod, as they again took uptheir trail. 

"Much snow come in winter, " elucidated the Indian. "Build house to keepsnow off traps. No do that, be digging out traps all winter. Whenmink--heem smell meat--go in house he got to go over trap. Make housefor all small animal like heem. No good for lynx. He see house--walkroun' 'n' roun' 'n' roun'--and then go 'way. Smart fellow--lynx. Wolfand fox, too. "

"Is a mink worth much?"

"Fi' dollar--no less that. Seven--eight dollar for good one. "

During the next mile six other mink traps were set. The creek now ranalong the edge of a high rocky ridge and Mukoki's eyes began to shinewith a new interest. No longer did he seem entirely absorbed in thediscovery of signs of fur animals. His eyes were constantly scanning thesun-bathed side of the ridge ahead and his progress was slow andcautious. He spoke in whispers, and Rod followed his example. Frequentlythe two would stop and scan the openings for signs of life. Twice theyset fox traps where there were evident signs of runways; in a wildravine, strewn with tumbled trees and masses of rock, they struck a lynxtrack and set a trap for him at each end of the ravine; but even duringthese operations Mukoki's interest was divided. The hunters now walkedabreast, about fifty yards apart, Rod never forging a foot ahead of thecautious Mukoki. Suddenly the youth heard a low call and he saw hiscompanion beckoning to him with frantic enthusiasm. 

"Wolf!" whispered Mukoki as Rod joined him. 

In the snow were a number of tracks that reminded Rod of those made by adog. 

"T'ree wolf!" continued the Indian jubilantly. "Travel early thismorning. Somewhere in warm sun on mountain!"

They followed now in the wolf trail. A little way on Rod found part ofthe carcass of a rabbit with fox tracks about it. Here Mukoki setanother trap. A little farther still they came across a fisher trail andanother trap was laid. Caribou and deer tracks crossed and recrossed thecreek, but the Indian paid little attention to them. A fourth wolfjoined the pack, and a fifth, and half an hour later the trail of threeother wolves cut at right angles across the one they were following anddisappeared in the direction of the thickly timbered plains. Mukoki'sface was crinkled with joy. 

"Many wolf near, " he exclaimed. "Many wolf off there 'n' off there 'n'off there. Good place for night hunt. "

Soon the creek swung out from the ridge and cut a circuitous channelthrough a small swamp. Here there were signs of wild life which setRod's heart thumping and his blood tingling with excitement. In placesthe snow was literally packed with deer tracks. Trails ran in everydirection, the bark had been rubbed from scores of saplings, and everystep gave fresh evidence of the near presence of game. The stealth withwhich Mukoki now advanced was almost painful. Every twig was pressedbehind him noiselessly, and once when Rod struck his snow-shoe againstthe butt of a small tree the old Indian held up his hands in mockhorror. Ten minutes, fifteen--twenty of them passed in this cautious, breathless trailing of the swamp. 

Suddenly Mukoki stopped, and a hand was held out behind him warningly. He turned his face back, and Rod knew that he saw game. Inch by inch hecrouched upon his snow-shoes, and beckoned for Rod to approach, slowly, quietly. When the boy had come near enough he passed back his rifle, andhis lips formed the almost noiseless word, "Shoot!"

Tremblingly Rod seized the gun and looked into the swamp ahead, Mukokidoubling down in front of him. What he saw sent him for a moment intothe first nervous tremor of buck fever. Not more than a hundred yardsaway stood a magnificent buck browsing the tips of a clump of hazel, andjust beyond him were two does. With a powerful effort Rod steadiedhimself. The buck was standing broadside, his head and neck stretchedup, offering a beautiful shot at the vital spot behind his fore leg. Atthis the young hunter aimed and fired. With one spasmodic bound theanimal dropped dead. 

Hardly had Rod seen the effect of his shot before Mukoki was travelingswiftly toward the fallen game, unstrapping his pack as he ran. By thetime the youth reached his quarry the old Indian had produced a largewhisky flask holding about a quart. Without explanation he now proceededto thrust his knife into the quivering animal's throat and fill thisflask with blood. When he had finished his task he held it up with anair of unbounded satisfaction. 

"Blood for wolf. Heem like blood. Smell um--come make big shootto-night. No blood, no bait--no wolf shoot!"

Mukoki no longer maintained his usual quiet, and it was evident to Rodthat the Indian considered his mission for that day practicallyaccomplished. After taking the heart, liver and one of the hind quartersof the buck Mukoki drew a long rope of babeesh from his pack, tied oneend of it around the animal's neck, flung the other end over a nearlimb, and with his companion's assistance hoisted the carcass until itwas clear of the ground. 

"If somethin' happen we no come back to-night heem safe from wolf, " heexplained. 

The two now continued through the swamp. At its farther edge the groundrose gently from the creek toward the hills, and this sloping plain wascovered with huge boulders and a thin growth of large spruce and birch. Just beyond the creek was a gigantic rock which immediately caughtMukoki's attention. All sides except one were too precipitous forascent, and even this one could not be climbed without the assistance ofa sapling or two. They could see, however, that the top of the, rock wasflat, and Mukoki called attention to this fact with an exultant chuckle. 

"Fine place for wolf hunt!" he exclaimed. "Many wolf off there in swampan' in hill. We call heem here. Shoot from there!" He pointed to a clumpof spruce a dozen rods away. 

By Rod's watch it was now nearly noon and the two sat down to eat thesandwiches they had brought with them. Only a few minutes were lost intaking up the home trail. Beyond the swamp Mukoki cut at right angles totheir trap-line until he had ascended to the top of the ridge that hadbeen on their right and which would take them very near their camp. Fromthis ridge Rod could look about him upon a wild and rugged scene. On oneside it sloped down to the plains, but on the other it fell in almostsheer walls, forming at its base five hundred feet below a narrow andgloomy chasm, through which a small stream found its way. Several timesMukoki stopped and leaned perilously close to the dizzy edge of themountain, peering down with critical eyes, and once when he pulledhimself back cautiously by means of a small sapling he explained hisinterest by saying:

"Plenty bear there in spring!"

But Rod was not thinking of bears. Once more his head was filled withthe thought of gold. Perhaps that very chasm held the priceless secretthat had died with its owners half a century ago. The dark and gloomysilence that hung between those two walls of rock, the death-likedesolation, the stealthy windings of the creek--everything in that dimand mysterious world between the two mountains, unshattered by sound andimpenetrable to the winter sun, seemed in his mind to link itself withthe tragedy of long ago. 

Did that chasm hold the secret of the dead men?

Again and again Rod found himself asking this question as he followedMukoki, and the oftener he asked it the nearer he seemed to an answer, until at last, with a curious, thrilling certainty that set his bloodtingling he caught Mukoki by the arm and pointing back, said:

"Mukoki--the gold was found between those mountains!"

CHAPTER IX

WOLF TAKES VENGEANCE UPON HIS PEOPLE

From that hour was born in Roderick Drew's breast a strange, imperishable desire. Willingly at this moment would he have given up thewinter trapping to have pursued that golden _ignis fatuus_ of allages--the lure of gold. To him the story of the old cabin, the skeletonsand the treasure of the buckskin bag was complete. Those skeletons hadonce been men. They had found a mine--a place where they had picked upnuggets with their fingers. And that treasure ground was somewhere near. No longer was he puzzled by the fact that they had discovered no moregold in the old log cabin. In a flash he had solved that mystery. Themen had just begun to gather their treasure when they had fought. Whatwas more logical than that? One day, two, three--and they had quarreledover division, over rights. That was the time when they were most likelyto quarrel. Perhaps one had discovered the gold and had thereforeclaimed a larger share. Anyway, the contents of the buckskin bagrepresented but a few days' labor. Rod was sure of that. 

Mukoki had grinned and shrugged his shoulders with an air of stupendousdoubt when Rod had told him that the gold lay between the mountains, sonow the youth kept his thoughts to himself. It was a silent trail home. Rod's mind was too active in its new channel, and he was too deeplyabsorbed in impressing upon his memory certain landmarks which theypassed to ask questions; and Mukoki, with the natural taciturnity of hisrace, seldom found occasion to break into conversation unless spoken tofirst. Although his eyes were constantly on the alert, Rod could see noway in which a descent could be made into the chasm from the ridge theywere on. This was a little disappointing, for he had made up his mind toexplore the gloomy, sunless gulch at his first opportunity. He had nodoubt that Wabi would join in the adventure. Or he might take his owntime, and explore it alone. He was reasonably sure that from somewhereon the opposite ridge a descent could be made into it. 

Wabi was in camp when they arrived. He had set eighteen traps and hadshot two spruce partridges. The birds were already cleaned for theirearly supper, and a thick slice of venison steak was added to the menu. During the preparation of the meal Rod described their discovery of thechasm and revealed some of his thoughts concerning it, but Wabi betrayedonly passing flashes of interest. At times he seemed strangelypreoccupied and would stand in an idle, contemplative mood, his handsburied deep in his pockets, while Rod or Mukoki proceeded with thelittle duties about the table or the stove. Finally, after arousinghimself from one of these momentary spells, he pulled a brass shell fromhis pocket and held it out to the old Indian. 

"See here, " he said. "I don't want to stir up any false fears, oranything of that sort--but I found that on the trail to-day!"

Mukoki clutched at the shell as though it had been another newly foundnugget of gold. The shell was empty. The lettering on the rim was stillvery distinct. He read ". 35 Rem. "

"Why, that's--"

"A shell from Rod's gun!"

For a few moments Rod and Mukoki stared at the young Indian in blankamazement. 

"It's a . 35 caliber Remington, " continued Wabi, "and it's an auto-loadingshell. There are only three guns like that in this country. I've gotone, Mukoki has another--and you lost the third in your fight with theWoongas!"

The venison had begun to burn, and Mukoki quickly transferred it to thetable. Without a word the three sat down to their meal. 

"That means the Woongas are on our trail, " declared Rod presently. 

"That is what I have been trying to reason out all the afternoon, "replied Wabi. "It certainly is proof that they are, or have been quiterecently, on this side of the mountain. But I don't believe they know weare here. The trail I struck was about five miles from camp. It was atleast two days old. Three Indians on snow-shoes were traveling north. Ifollowed back on their trail and found after a time that the Indians hadcome from the north, which leads me to believe that they were simply ona hunting expedition, cut a circle southward, and then returned to theircamp. I don't believe they will come farther south. But we must keep oureyes open. "

Wabi's description of the manner in which the strange trail turned gavegreat satisfaction to Mukoki, who nodded affirmatively when the younghunter expressed it as his belief that the Woongas would not come so faras their camp. But the discovery of their presence chilled the buoyantspirits of the hunters. There was, however, a new spice of adventurelurking in this possible peril that was not altogether displeasing, andby the time the meal was at an end something like a plan of campaign hadbeen formed. The hunters would not wait to be attacked and then act inself-defense, possibly at a disadvantage. They would be constantly onthe lookout for the Woongas, and if a fresh trail or a camp was foundthey would begin the man-hunt themselves. 

The sun was just beginning to sink behind the distant hills in thesouthwest when the hunters again left camp. Wolf had received nothing toeat since the previous night, and with increasing hunger the fieryimpatience lurking in his eyes and the restlessness of his movementsbecame more noticeable. Mukoki called attention to these symptoms with agloating satisfaction. 

The gloom of early evening was enveloping the wilderness by the time thethree wolf hunters reached the swamp in which Rod had slain the buck. While he carried the guns and packs, Mukoki and Wabigoon dragged thebuck between them to the huge flat-top rock. Now for the first time thecity youth began to understand the old pathfinder's scheme. Severalsaplings were cut, and by means of a long rope of babeesh the deer wasdragged up the side of the rock until it rested securely upon the flatspace. From the dead buck's neck the babeesh rope was now stretchedacross the intervening space between the rock and the clump of cedars inwhich the hunters were to conceal themselves. In two of these cedars, ata distance of a dozen feet from the ground, were quickly made threeplatforms of saplings, upon which the ambushed watchers couldcomfortably seat themselves. By the time complete darkness had fallenthe "trap" was finished, with the exception of a detail which Rodfollowed with great interest. 

From inside his clothes, where it had been kept warm by his body, Mukokiproduced the flask of blood. A third of this blood he scattered upon theface of the rock and upon the snow at its base. The remainder hedistributed, drop by drop, in trails running toward the swamp andplains. 

There still remained three hours before the moon would be up, and thehunters now joined Wolf, who had been fastened half-way up the ridge. Inthe shelter of a big rock a small fire was built, and during their longwait the hunters passed the time away by broiling and eating chunks ofvenison and in going over again the events of the day. 

It was nine o'clock before the moon rose above the edge of thewilderness. This great orb of the Northern night seemed to hold anever-ending fascination for Rod. It crept above the forests, a glowing, throbbing ball of red, quivering and palpitating in an effulgence thatneither cloud nor mist dimmed in this desolation beyond the sphere ofman; and as it rose, almost with visible movement to the eyes, the bloodin it faded, until at last it seemed a great blaze of soft light betweensilver and gold. It was then that the whole world was lighted up underit. It was then that Mukoki, speaking softly, beckoned the others tofollow him, and with Wolf at his side went down the ridge. 

Making a circuit around the back of the rock, Mukoki paused near a smallsapling twenty yards from the dead buck and secured Wolf by his babeeshthong. Hardly had he done so when the animal began to exhibit signs ofexcitement. He trotted about nervously, sniffing the air, gathering thewind from every direction, and his jaws dropped with a snarling whine. Then he struck one of the clots of blood in the snow. 

"Come, " whispered Wabi, pulling at Rod's sleeve, "come--quietly. "

They slipped back among the shadows of the spruce and watched Wolf inunbroken silence. The animal now stood rigidly over the blood clot. Hishead was level with his quivering back, his ears half aslant, hisnostrils pointing to a strange thrilling scent that came to him fromsomewhere out there in the moonlight. Once more the instinct of hisbreed was flooding the soul of the captive wolf. There was the odor ofblood in his widening nostrils. It was not the blood of the camp, of theslaughtered game dragged in by human hands before his eyes. It was theblood of the chase!

A flashing memory of his captors turned the animal's head for an instantin backward inspection. They were gone. He could neither hear nor seethem. He sniffed the sign of human presence, but that sign was alwayswith him, and was not disturbing. The blood held him--and the strangescent, the game scent--that was coming to him more clearly everyinstant. 

He crunched about cautiously in the snow. He found other spots of blood, and to the watchers there came a low long whine that seemed about to endin the wolf song. The blood trails were leading him away toward the gamescent, and he tugged viciously at the babeesh that held him captive, gnawing at it vainly, like an angry dog, forgetting what experience hadtaught him many times before. Each moment added to his excitement He ranabout the sapling, gulped mouthfuls of the bloody snow, and each time hepaused for a moment with his open dripping jaws held toward the deadbuck on the rock. The game was very near. Brute sense told him that. Oh, the longing that was in him, the twitching, quivering longing tokill--kill--kill!

He made another effort, tore up the snow in his frantic endeavors tofree himself, to break loose, to follow in the wild glad cry of freedsavagery in the calling of his people. He failed again, panting, whiningin piteous helplessness. 

Then he settled upon his haunches at the end of his babeesh thong. 

For a moment his head turned to the moonlit sky, his long nose poised atright angles to the bristling hollows between his shoulders. 

There came then a low, whining wail, like the beginning of the"death-song" of a husky dog--a wail that grew in length and in strengthand in volume until it rose weirdly among the mountains and swept farout over the plains--the hunt call of the wolf on the trail, which callsto him the famished, gray-gaunt outlaws of the wilderness, as thebugler's notes call his fellows on the field of battle. 

Three times that blood-thrilling cry went up from the captive wolf'sthroat, and before those cries had died away the three hunters wereperched upon their platforms among the spruce. 

There followed now the ominous, waiting silence of an awakenedwilderness. Rod could hear his heart throbbing within him. He forgot theintense cold. His nerves tingled. He looked out over the endless plains, white and mysteriously beautiful as they lay bathed in the glow of themoon. And Wabi knew more than he what was happening. All over that wilddesolation the call of the wolf had carried its meaning. Down there, where a lake lay silent in its winter sleep, a doe started in tremblingand fear; beyond the mountain a huge bull moose lifted his antlered headwith battle-glaring eyes; half a mile away a fox paused for an instantin its sleuth-like stalking of a rabbit; and here and there in thatworld of wild things the gaunt hungry people of Wolf's blood stopped intheir trails and turned their heads toward the signal that was coming inwailing echoes to their ears. 

And then the silence was broken. From afar--it might have been a mileaway--there came an answering cry; and at that cry the wolf at the endof his babeesh thong settled upon his haunches again and sent back thecall that comes only when there is blood upon the trail or when near thekilling time. 

There was not the rustle of a bough, not a word spoken, by the silentwatchers in the spruce. Mukoki had slipped back and half lay across hissupport in shooting attitude. Wabi had braced a foot, and his rifle washalf to his shoulder, leveled over a knee. It was Rod's turn with thebig revolver, and he had practised aiming through a crotch that gave arest to his arm. 

In a few moments there came again the howl of the distant wolf on theplains, and this time it was joined by another away to the westward. Andafter that there came two from the plains instead of one, and then a farcry to the north and east. For the first time Rod and Wabi heard thegloating chuckle of Mukoki in his spruce a dozen feet away. 

At the increasing responses of his brethren Wolf became more frantic inhis efforts. The scent of fresh blood and of wounded game was becomingmaddening to the captive. But his frenzy no longer betrayed itself infutile efforts to escape from the babeesh thong. Wolf knew that hiscries were assembling the hunt-pack. Nearer and nearer came theresponses of the leaders, and there were now only momentary restsbetween the deep-throated exhortations which he sent in all directionsinto the night. 

Suddenly, almost from the swamp itself, there came a quick, excited, yelping reply, and Wabi gripped Rod by the arm. 

"He has struck the place where you killed the buck, " he whispered. "There'll be quick work now!"

Hardly had he spoken when a series of excited howls broke forth from theswamp, coming nearer and nearer as the hunger-crazed outlaw of theplains followed over the rich-scented trail made by the two Indians asthey carried the slaughtered deer. Soon he nosed one of the trails ofblood, and a moment later the watchers saw a gaunt shadow form runningswiftly over the snow toward Wolf. 

For an instant, as the two beasts of prey met, there fell a silence;then both animals joined in the wailing hunt-pack cry, and the wolf thatwas free came to the edge of the great rock and stood with his fore feeton its side, and his cry changed from that of the chase to the stillmore thrilling signal that told the gathering pack of game at bay. 

Swiftly the wolves closed in. From over the edge of the mountain onecame and joined the wolf at the rock without the hunters seeing hisapproach. From out of the swamp there came a pack of three, and nowabout the rock there grew a maddened, yelping horde, clambering andscrambling and fighting in their efforts to climb up to the game thatwas so near and yet beyond their reach. And sixty feet away Wolfcrouched, watching the gathering of his clan, helpless, panting from hischoking efforts to free himself, and quieting, gradually quieting, untilin sullen silence he looked upon the scene, as though he knew the momentwas very near when that thrilling spectacle would be changed into ascene of direst tragedy. 

And it was Mukoki who had first said that this was the vengeance of Wolfupon his people. 

From Mukoki there now came a faint hissing warning, and Wabi threw hisrifle to his shoulder. There were at least a score of wolves at the baseof the rock. Gradually the old Indian pulled upon the babeesh rope thatled to the dead buck--pulled until he was putting a half of his strengthinto the effort, and could feel the animal slowly slipping from the flatledge. A moment more and the buck tumbled down in the midst of thewaiting pack. 

As flies gather upon a lump of sugar the famished animals now crowdedand crushed and fought over the deer's body, and as they came thustogether there sounded the quick sharp signal to fire from Mukoki. 

For five seconds the edge of the spruce was a blaze of death-dealingflashes, and the deafening reports of the two rifles and the big Coltdrowned the cries and struggles of the animals. When those five secondswere over fifteen shots had been fired, and five seconds later the vast, beautiful silence of the wilderness night had fallen again. About therock was the silence of death, broken only faintly by the last gaspingthroes of the animals that lay dying in the snow. 

In the trees there sounded the metallic clink of loading shells. 

Wabi spoke first. 

"I believe we did a good job, Mukoki!"

Mukoki's reply was to slip down his tree. The others followed, andhastened across to the rock. Five bodies lay motionless in the snow. Asixth was dragging himself around the side of the rock, and Mukokiattacked it with his belt-ax. Still a seventh had run for a dozen rods, leaving a crimson trail behind, and when Wabi and Rod came up to it theanimal was convulsed in its last dying struggles. 

"Seven!" exclaimed the Indian youth. "That is one of the best shoots weever had. A hundred and five dollars in a night isn't bad, is it?"

The two came back to the rock, dragging the wolf with them. Mukoki wasstanding as rigid as a statue in the moonlight, his face turned into thenorth. He pointed one arm far out over the plains, and said, withoutturning his head, "See!"

Far out in that silent desolation the hunters saw a lurid flash offlame. It climbed up and up, until it filled the night above it with adull glow--a single unbroken stream of fire that rose far above theswamps and forests of the plains. 

"That's a burning jackpine!" said Wabigoon. 

"Burning jackpine!" agreed the old warrior. Then he added, "Woongasignal fire!"

CHAPTER X

RODERICK EXPLORES THE CHASM

To Rod the blazing pine seemed to be but a short distance away--a mile, perhaps a little more. In the silence of the two Indians as theycontemplated the strange fire he read an ominous meaning. In Mukoki'seyes was a dull sullen glare, not unlike that which fills the orbs of awild beast in a moment of deadly anger. Wabi's face was filled with aneager flush, and three times, Rod observed, he turned eyes strangelyburning with some unnatural passion upon Mukoki. 

Slowly, even as the instincts of his race had aroused the latent, brutish love of slaughter and the chase in the tamed wolf, the longsmothered instincts of these human children of the forest began tobetray themselves in their bronzed countenances. Rod watched, and he wasthrilled to the soul. Back at the old cabin they had declared war uponthe Woongas. Both Mukoki and Wabigoon had slipped the leashes that hadlong restrained them from meting first vengeance upon their enemies. Nowthe opportunity had come. For five minutes the great pine blazed, andthen died away until it was only a smoldering tower of light. StillMukoki gazed, speechless and grim, out into the distance of the night. At last Wabi broke the silence. 

"How far away is it, Muky?"

"T'ree mile, " answered the old warrior without hesitation. 

"We could make it in forty minutes. "

"Yes. "

Wabi turned to Rod. 

"You can find your way back to camp alone, can't you?" he asked. 

"Not if you're going over there!" declared the white boy. "I'm goingwith you. "

Mukoki broke in upon them with a harsh disappointed laugh. 

"No go. No go over there. " He spoke with emphasis, and shook his head. "We lose pine in five minutes. No find Woonga camp--make big trail forWoongas to see in morning. Better wait. Follow um trail in day, thenshoot!"

Rod found immense relief in the old Indian's decision. He did not fear afight; in fact, he was a little too anxious to meet the outlaws who hadstolen his gun, now that they had determined upon opening fire on sight. But in this instance he was possessed of the cooler judgment of hisrace. He believed that as yet the Woongas were not aware of theirpresence in this region, and that there was still a large possibility ofthe renegades traveling northward beyond their trapping sphere. He hopedthat this would be the case, in spite of his desire to recapture hisgun. A scrimmage with the Woongas just now would spoil the plans he hadmade for discovering gold. 

The "Skeleton Mine, " as he had come to call it, now absorbed histhoughts beyond everything else. He felt confident that he woulddiscover the lost treasure ground if given time, and he was just asconfident that if war was once begun between themselves and the Woongasit would mean disaster or quick flight from the country. Even Wabi, worked up more in battle enthusiasm than by gold fever, conceded that ifhalf of the Woongas were in this country they were much too powerful forthem to cope with successfully, especially as one of them was without arifle. 

It was therefore with inward exultation that Rod saw the project ofattack dropped and Mukoki and Wabigoon proceed with their short task ofscalping the seven wolves. During this operation Wolf was allowed tofeast upon the carcass of the buck. 

That night there was but little sleep in the old cabin. It was twoo'clock when the hunters arrived in camp and from that hour until nearlyfour they sat about the hot stove making plans for the day that wasnearly at hand. Rod could but contrast the excitement that had now takenpossession of them with the tranquil joy with which they had first takenup their abode in this dip in the hilltop. And how different were theirplans from those of two or three days ago! Not one of them now butrealized their peril. They were in an ideal hunting range, but it wasevidently very near, if not actually in, the Woonga country. At anymoment they might be forced to fight for their lives or abandon theircamp, and perhaps they would be compelled to do both. 

So the gathering about the stove was in reality a small council of war. It was decided that the old cabin should immediately be put into acondition of defense, with a loophole on each side, strong new bars atthe door, and with a thick barricade near at hand that could be quicklyfitted against the window in case of attack. Until the war-cloudscleared away, if they cleared at all, the camp would be continuallyguarded by one of the hunters, and with this garrison would be left bothof the heavy revolvers. At dawn or a little later Mukoki would set outupon Wabi's trap-line, both to become acquainted with it and to extendthe line of traps, while later in the day the Indian youth would followMukoki's line, visiting the houses already built and setting othertraps. This scheme left to Rod the first day's watch in camp. 

Mukoki aroused himself from his short sleep with the first approach ofdawn but did not awaken his tired companions until breakfast was ready. When the meal was finished he seized his gun and signified his intentionof visiting the mink traps just beyond the hill before leaving on hislong day's trail. Rod at once joined him, leaving Wabi to wash thedishes. 

They were shortly within view of the trap-houses near the creek. Instinctively the eyes of both rested upon these houses and neither gavevery close attention to the country ahead or about them. As a resultboth were exceedingly startled when they heard a huge snort and a greatcrunching in the deep snow close beside them. From out of a small growthof alders had dashed a big bull moose, who was now tearing with thespeed of a horse up the hillside toward the hidden camp, evidentlyseeking the quick shelter of the dip. 

"Wait heem git top of hill!" shouted Mukoki, swinging his rifle to hisshoulder. "Wait!"

It was a beautiful shot and Rod was tempted to ignore the old Indian'sadvice. But he knew that there was some good reason for it, so he heldhis trembling finger. Hardly had the animal's huge antlered head risento the sky-line when Mukoki shouted again, and the young hunter pressedthe trigger of his automatic gun three times in rapid succession. It wasa short shot, not more than two hundred yards, and Mukoki fired but oncejust as the bull mounted the hilltop. 

The next instant the moose was gone and Rod was just about to dash inpursuit when his companion caught him by the arm. 

"We got um!" he grinned. "He run downhill, then fall--ver' close tocamp. Ver' good scheme--wait heem git on top hill. No have to carry meatfar!"

As coolly as though nothing had occurred the Indian turned again in thedirection of the traps. Rod stood as though he had been nailed to thespot, his mouth half open in astonishment. 

"We go see traps, " urged Mukoki. "Find moose dead when we go back. "

But Roderick Drew, who had hunted nothing larger than house rats in hisown city, was not the young man to see the logic of this reasoning, andbefore Mukoki could open his mouth again he was hurrying up the hill. Onits summit he saw a huge torn-up blotch in the snow, spattered withblood, where the moose had fallen first after the shots; and at the footof the hill, as the Indian had predicted, the great animal lay dead. 

Wabi was hastening across the lake, attracted by the shots, and bothreached the slain bull at about the same time. Rod quickly perceivedthat three shots had taken effect; one, which was undoubtedly Mukoki'scarefully directed ball, in a vital spot behind the fore leg, and twothrough the body. The fact that two of his own shots had taken goodeffect filled the white youth with enthusiasm, and he was stillgesticulating excitedly in describing the bull's flight to Wabi when theold Indian came over the hill, grinning broadly, and holding up fortheir inspection a magnificent mink. 

The day could not have begun more auspiciously for the hunters, and bythe time Mukoki was ready to leave upon his long trail the adventurerswere in buoyant spirits, the distressing fears of the preceding nightbeing somewhat dispelled by their present good fortune and the gloriousday which now broke in full splendor upon the wilderness. 

Until their early dinner Wabi remained in camp, securing certain partsof the moose and assisting Rod in putting the cabin into a state ofdefense according to their previous plans. It was not yet noon when hestarted over Mukoki's trap-line. 

Left to his own uninterrupted thoughts, Rod's mind was once moreabsorbed in his scheme of exploring the mysterious chasm. He had noticedduring his inspection from the top of the ridge that the winter snowshad as yet fallen but little in the gloomy gulch between the mountains, and he was eager to attempt his adventure before other snows came or thefierce blizzards of December filled the chasm with drifts. Later in theafternoon he brought forth the buckskin bag from a niche in the log wallwhere it had been concealed, and one after another carefully examinedthe golden nuggets. He found, as he had expected, that they were worn toexceeding smoothness, and that every edge had been dulled and rounded. Rod's favorite study in school had been a minor branch of geology andmineralogy, and he knew that only running water could work thissmoothness. He was therefore confident that the nuggets had beendiscovered in or on the edge of a running stream. And that stream, hewas sure, was the one in the chasm. 

But Rod's plans for an early investigation were doomed todisappointment. Late that day both Mukoki and Wabi returned, the latterwith a red fox and another mink, the former with a fisher, whichreminded Rod of a dog just growing out of puppyhood, and another storyof strange trails that renewed their former apprehensions. The oldIndian had discovered the remnants of the burned jackpine, and about itwere the snow-shoe tracks of three Indians. One of these trails camefrom the north and two from the west, which led him to believe that thepine had been fired as a signal to call the two. At the very end oftheir trap-line, which extended about four miles from camp, a singlesnow-shoe trail had cut across at right angles, also swinging into thenorth. 

These discoveries necessitated a new arrangement of the plans that hadbeen made the preceding night. Hereafter, it was agreed, only onetrap-line would be visited each day, and by two of the hunters incompany, both armed with rifles. Rod saw that this meant the abandonmentof his scheme for exploring the chasm, at least for the present. 

Day after day now passed without evidences of new trails, and each dayadded to the hopes of the adventurers that they were at last to be leftalone in the country. Never had Mukoki or Wabigoon been in a bettertrapping ground, and every visit to their lines added to their hoard offurs. If left unmolested it was plainly evident that they would take asmall fortune back to Wabinosh House with them early in the spring. Besides many mink, several fisher, two red foxes and a lynx, they addedtwo fine "cross" foxes and three wolf scalps to their treasure duringthe next three weeks. Rod began to think occasionally of the joy theirsuccess would bring to the little home hundreds of miles away, where heknew that the mother was waiting and praying for him every day of herlife; and there were times, too, when he found himself counting the daysthat must still elapse before he returned to Minnetaki and the Post. 

But at no time did he give up his determination to explore the chasm. From the first Mukoki and Wabigoon had regarded this project with littlefavor, declaring the impossibility of discovering gold under snow, eventhough gold was there; so Rod waited and watched for an opportunity tomake the search alone, saying nothing about his plans. 

On a beautiful day late in December, when the sun rose with dazzlingbrightness, his opportunity came. Wabi was to remain in camp, andMukoki, who was again of the belief that they were safe from theWoongas, was to follow one of the trap-lines alone. Supplying himselfwell with food, taking Wabi's rifle, a double allowance of cartridges, aknife, belt-ax, and a heavy blanket in his pack, Rod set out for thechasm. Wabi laughed as he stood in the doorway to see him off. 

"Good luck to you, Rod; hope you find gold, " he cried gaily, waving afinal good-by with his hand. 

"If I don't return to-night don't you fellows worry about me, " calledback the youth. "If things look promising I may camp in the chasm andtake up the hunt again in the morning. "

He now passed quickly to the second ridge, knowing from previousexperience that it would be impossible to make a descent into the gulchfrom the first mountain. This range, a mile south of the camp, had notbeen explored by the hunters, but Rod was sure that there was no dangerof losing himself as long as he followed along the edge of the chasmwhich was in itself a constant and infallible guide. Much to hisdisappointment he found that the southern walls of this mysterious breakbetween the mountains were as precipitous as those on the opposite side, and for two hours he looked in vain for a place where he might climbdown. The country was now becoming densely wooded and he was constantlyencountering signs of big game. But he paid little attention to these. Finally he came to a point where the forest swept over and down thesteep side of the mountain, and to his great joy he saw that bystrapping his snow-shoes to his back and making good use of his hands itwas possible for him to make a descent. 

Fifteen minutes later, breathless but triumphant, he stood at the bottomof the chasm. On his right rose the strip of cedar forest; on his lefthe was shut in by towering walls of black and shattered rock. At hisfeet was the little stream which had played such an important part inhis golden dreams, frozen in places, and in others kept clear of ice bythe swiftness of its current. A little ahead of him was that gloomy, sunless part of the chasm into which he had peered so often from the topof the ridge on the north. As he advanced step by step into itsmysterious silence, his eyes alert, his nerves stretched to a tension ofthe keenest expectancy, there crept over him a feeling that he wasinvading that enchanted territory which, even at this moment, might beguarded by the spirits of the two mortals who had died because of thetreasure it held. 

Narrower and narrower became the walls high over his head. Not a ray ofsunlight penetrated into the soundless gloom. Not a leaf shivered in thestill air. The creek gurgled and spattered among its rocks, without thenote of a bird or the chirp of a squirrel to interrupt its monotony. Everything was dead. Now and then Rod could hear the wind whisperingover the top of the chasm. But not a breath of it came down to him. Under his feet was only sufficient snow to deaden his own footsteps, andhe still carried his snow-shoes upon his back. 

Suddenly, from the thick gloom that hung under one of the cragged walls, there came a thundering, unearthly sound that made him stop, his rifleswung half to shoulder. He saw that he had disturbed a great owl, andpassed on. Now and then he paused beside the creek and took up handfulafter handful of its pebbles, his heart beating high with hope at everynew gleam he caught among them, and never sinking to disappointmentthough he found no gold. The gold was here--somewhere. He was as certainof that as he was of the fact that he was living, and searching for it. Everything assured him of that; the towering masses of cleft rock, wholewalls seeming about to crumble into ruin, the broad margins of pebblesalong the creek--everything, to the very stillness and mystery in theair, spoke this as the abode of the skeletons' secret. 

It was this inexplicable _something_--this unseen, mysterious elementhovering in the air that caused the white youth to advance step by step, silently, cautiously, as though the slightest sound under his feet mightawaken the deadliest of enemies. And it was because of this stealth inhis progress that he came very close upon something that was living, andwithout startling it. Less than fifty yards ahead of him he saw anobject moving slowly among the rocks. It was a fox. Even before theanimal had detected his presence he had aimed and fired. 

Thunderous echoes rose up about him. They rolled down the chasm, volumeupon volume, until in the ghostly gloom between the mountain walls hestood and listened, a nervous shiver catching him once or twice. Notuntil the last echo had died away did he approach where the fox lay uponthe snow. It was not red. It was not black. It was not--

His heart gave a big excited thump. The bleeding creature at his feetwas the most beautiful animal he had ever seen--and the tip of its thickblack fur was silver gray. 

Then, in that lonely chasm, there went up a great human whoop of joy. 

"A silver fox!"

Rod spoke the words aloud. For five minutes he stood and looked upon hisprize. He held it up and stroked it, and from what Wabi and Mukoki hadtold him he knew that the silken pelt of this creature was worth more tothem than all the furs at the camp together. 

He made no effort to skin it, but put the animal in his pack and resumedhis slow, noiseless exploration of the gulch. 

He had now passed beyond those points in the range from which he hadlooked down into this narrow, shut-in world. Ever more wild and gloomybecame the chasm. At times the two walls of rock seemed almost to meetfar above his head; under gigantic, overhanging crags there lurked theshadows of night. Fascinated by the grandeur and loneliness of thescenes through which he was passing Rod forgot the travel of time. Mileafter mile he continued his tireless trail. He had no inclination toeat. He stopped only once at the creek to drink. And when he looked athis watch he was astonished to find that it was three o'clock in theafternoon. 

It was now too late to think of returning to camp. Within an hour theday gloom of the chasm would be thickening into that of night. So Rodstopped at the first good camp site, threw off his pack, and proceededwith the building of a cedar shelter. Not until this was completed and asufficient supply of wood for the night's fire was at hand did he begingetting supper. He had brought a pail with him and soon the appetizingodors of boiling coffee and broiling moose sirloin filled the air. 

Night had fallen between the mountain walls by the time Rod sat down tohis meal. 

CHAPTER XI

RODERICK'S DREAM

A chilling loneliness now crept over the young adventurer. Even as heate he tried to peer out into the mysterious darkness. A sound from upthe chasm, made by some wild prowler of the night, sent a nervous tremorthrough him. He was not afraid; he would not have confessed to that. Butstill, the absolute, almost gruesome silence between the two mountains, the mere knowledge that he was alone in a place where the foot of manhad not trod for more than half a century, was not altogether quietingto his nerves. What mysteries might not these grim walls hold? Whatmight not happen here, where everything was so strange, so weird, and sodifferent from the wilderness world just over the range?

Rod tried to laugh away his nervousness, but the very sound of his ownvoice was distressing. It rose in unnatural shivering echoes--a low, hollow mockery of a laugh beating itself against the walls; a ghost of alaugh, Rod thought, and that very thought made him hunch closer to thefire. The young hunter was not superstitious, or at least he was notunnaturally so; but what man or boy is there in this whole wide world ofours who does not, at some time, inwardly cringe from something in theair--something that does not exist and never did exist, but which holdsa peculiar and nameless fear for the soul of a human being?

And Rod, as he piled his fire high with wood and shrank in the warmth ofhis cedar shelter, felt that nameless dread; and there came to him nothought of sleep, no feeling of fatigue, but only that he was alone, absolutely alone, in the mystery and almost unending silence of thechasm. Try as he would he could not keep from his mind the vision of theskeletons as he had first seen them in the old cabin. 

Many, many years ago, even before his own mother was born, thoseskeletons had trod this very chasm. They had drunk from the same creekas he, they had clambered over the same rocks, they had camped perhapswhere he was camping now! They, too, in flesh and life, had strainedtheir ears in the grim silence, they had watched the flickering light oftheir camp-fire on the walls of rock--and they had found gold!

Just now, if Rod could have moved himself by magic, he would have beensafely back in camp. He listened. From far back over the trail he hadfollowed there came a lonely, plaintive, almost pleading cry. 

"'Ello--'ello--'ello!"

It sounded like a distant human greeting, but Rod knew that it was theawakening night cry of what Wabi called the "man owl. " It was weirdlyhuman-like; and the echoes came softly, and more softly, until ghostlyvoices seemed to be whispering in the blackness about him. 

"'Ello--'ello--'ello!"

The boy shivered and laid his rifle across his knees. There wastremendous comfort in the rifle. Rod fondled it with his fingers, andtwo or three times he felt as though he would almost like to talk to it. Only those who have gone far into the silence and desolation of theunblazed wilderness know just how human a good rifle becomes to itsowner. It is a friend every hour of the night and day, faithful to itsmaster's desires, keeping starvation at bay and holding death for hisenemies; a guaranty of safety at his bedside by night, a sharp-fangedwatch-dog by day, never treacherous and never found wanting by the onewho bestows upon it the care of a comrade and friend. Thus had Rod cometo look upon his rifle. He rubbed the barrel now with his mittens; hepolished the stock as he sat in his loneliness, and long afterward, though he had determined to remain awake during the night, he fellasleep with it clasped tightly in his hands. 

It was an uneasy, troubled slumber in which the young adventurer'svisions and fears took a more realistic form. He half sat, half lay, upon his cedar boughs; his head fell forward upon his breast, his feetwere stretched out to the fire. Now and then unintelligible sounds fellfrom his lips, and he would start suddenly as if about to awaken, buteach time would sink back into his restless sleep, still clutching thegun. 

The visions in his head began to take a more definite form. Once more hewas on the trail, and had come to the old cabin. But this time he wasalone. The window of the cabin was wide open, but the door was tightlyclosed, just as the hunters had found it when they first came down intothe dip. He approached cautiously. When very near the window he heardsounds--strange sounds--like the clicking of bones!

Step by step in his dream he approached the window and looked in. Andthere he beheld a sight that froze him to the marrow. Two huge skeletonswere struggling in deadly embrace. He could hear no sound but theclick-click-click of their bones. He saw the gleam of knives heldbetween fleshless fingers, and he saw now that both were struggling forthe possession of something that was upon the table. Now one almostreached it, now the other, but neither gained possession. 

The clicking of the bones became louder, the struggle fiercer, theknives of the skeleton combatants rose and fell. Then one staggered backand sank in a heap on the floor. 

For a moment the victor swayed, tottered to the table, and gripped themysterious object in its bony fingers. 

As it stumbled weakly against the cabin wall the gruesome creature heldthe object up, and Rod saw that it was a roll of birch-bark!

An ember in the dying fire snapped with a sound like the report of asmall pistol and Rod sat bolt upright, awake, staring, trembling. What ahorrible dream! He drew in his cramped legs and approached the fire onhis knees, holding his rifle in one hand while he piled on wood with theother. 

What a horrible dream!

He shuddered and ran his eyes around the impenetrable wall of blacknessthat shut him in, the thought constantly flashing through his mind, whata horrible dream--what a horrible dream!

He sat down again and watched the flames of his fire as they climbedhigher and higher. The light and the heat cheered him, and after alittle he allowed his mind to dwell upon the adventure of his slumber. It had made him sweat. He took off his cap and found that the hair abouthis forehead was damp. 

All the different phases of a dream return to one singly when awake, andit was with the suddenness of a shot that there came to Rod aremembrance of the skeleton hand held aloft, clutching between itsgleaming fleshless fingers the roll of birch-bark. And with that memoryof his dream there came another--the skeleton in the cabin was clutchinga piece of birch-bark when they had buried it!

Could that crumpled bit of bark hold the secret of the lost mine?

Was it for the possession of that bark instead of the buckskin bag thatthe men had fought and died?

As the minutes passed Rod forgot his loneliness, forgot his nervousnessand only thought of the possibilities of the new clue that had come tohim in a dream. Wabi and Mukoki had seen the bark clutched in theskeleton fingers, but they as well as he had given it no specialsignificance, believing that it had been caught up in some terrible partof the struggle when both combatants were upon the floor, or perhaps inthe dying agonies of the wounded man against the wall. Rod rememberednow that they had found no more birch-bark upon the floor, which theywould have done if a supply had been kept there for kindling fires. Stepby step he went over the search they had made in the old cabin, and moreand more satisfied did he become that the skeleton hand held somethingof importance for them. 

He replenished his fire and waited impatiently for dawn. At fouro'clock, before day had begun to dispel the gloom of night, he cookedhis breakfast and prepared his pack for the homeward journey. Soonafterward a narrow rim of light broke through the rift in the chasm. Slowly it crept downward, until the young hunter could make out objectsnear him and the walls of the mountains. 

Thick shadows still defied his vision when he began retracing his stepsover the trail he had made the day before. He returned with the samecaution that he had used in his advance. Even more carefully, ifpossible, did he scrutinize the rocks and the creek ahead. He hadalready found life in the chasm, and he might find more. 

The full light of day came quickly now, and with it the youth's progressbecame more rapid. He figured that if he lost no time in furtherinvestigation of the creek he would arrive at camp by noon, and theywould dig up the skeleton without delay. There was little snow in thechasm, in spite of the lateness of the season, and if the roll of barkheld the secret of the lost gold it would be possible for them to locatethe treasure before other snows came to baffle them. 

At the spot where he had killed the silver fox Rod paused for a moment. He wondered if foxes ever traveled in pairs, and regretted that he hadnot asked Wabi or Mukoki that question. He could see where the fox hadcome straight from the black wall of the mountain. Curiosity led himover the trail. He had not followed it more than two hundred yards whenhe stopped in sudden astonishment. Plainly marked in the snow before himwas the trail of a pair of snow-shoes! Whoever had been there had passedsince he shot the fox, for the imprints of the animal's feet were buriedunder those of the snow-shoes. 

Who was the other person in the chasm?

Was it Wabi?

Had Mukoki or he come to join him? Or--

He looked again at the snow-shoe trail. It was a peculiar trail, unlikethe one made by his own shoes. The imprints were a foot longer than hisown, and narrower. Neither Wabi nor Mukoki wore shoes that would makethat trail!

At this point the strange trail had turned and disappeared among therocks along the wall of the mountain, and it occurred to Rod thatperhaps the stranger had not discovered his presence in the chasm. Therewas some consolation in this thought, but it was doomed to quickdisappointment. Very cautiously the youth advanced, his rifle held inreadiness and his eyes searching every place of concealment ahead ofhim. A hundred yards farther on the stranger had stopped, and from theway in which the snow was packed Rod knew that he had stood in alistening and watchful attitude for some time. From this point the trailtook another turn and came down until, from behind a huge rock, thestranger had cautiously peered out upon the path made by the whiteyouth. 

It was evident that he was extremely anxious to prevent the discovery ofhis own trail, for now the mysterious spy threaded his way behind rocksuntil he had again come to the shelter of the mountain wall. 

Rod was perplexed. He realized the peril of his dilemma, and yet he knewnot what course to take to evade it. He had little doubt that the trailwas made by one of the treacherous Woongas, and that the Indian not onlyknew of his presence, but was somewhere in the rocks ahead of him, perhaps even now waiting behind some ambuscade to shoot him. Should hefollow the trail, or would it be safer to steal along among the rocks ofthe opposite wall of the chasm?

He had decided upon the latter course when his eyes caught a narrowhorizontal slit cleaving the face of the mountain on his left, towardwhich the snow-shoe tracks seemed to lead. With his rifle ready forinstant use the youth slowly approached the fissure, and was surprisedto find that it was a complete break in the wall of rock, not more thanfour feet wide, and continuing on a steady incline to the summit of theridge. At the mouth of this fissure his mysterious watcher had taken offhis snow-shoes and Rod could see where he had climbed up the narrow exitfrom the chasm. 

With a profound sense of relief the young hunter hurried along the baseof the mountain, keeping well within its shelter so that eyes that mightbe spying from above could not see his movements. He now felt no fear ofdanger. The stranger's flight up the cleft in the chasm wall and hiscareful attempts to conceal his trail among the rocks assured Rod thathe had no designs upon his life. His chief purpose had seemed to be tokeep secret his own presence in the gorge, and this fact in itself addedto the mystification of the white youth. For a long time he had beensecretly puzzled, and had evolved certain ideas of his own because ofthe movements of the Woongas. Contrary to the opinions of Mukoki andWabigoon, he believed that the red outlaws were perfectly conscious oftheir presence in the dip. From the first their actions had beenunaccountable, but not once had one of their snow-shoe trails crossedtheir trap-lines. 

Was this fact in itself not significant? Rod was of a contemplativetheoretical turn of mind, one of those wide-awake, interesting youngfellows who find food for conjecture in almost every incident thatoccurs, and his suspicions were now aroused to an unusual pitch. A chieffault, however, was that he kept most of his suspicions to himself, forhe believed that Mukoki and Wabigoon, born and taught in the life of thewilderness, were infallible in their knowledge of the ways and the lawsand the perils of the world they were in. 

CHAPTER XII

THE SECRET OF THE SKELETON'S HAND

A little before noon Rod arrived at the top of the hill from which hecould look down on their camp. He was filled with pleasurableanticipation, and with an unbounded swelling satisfaction that causedhim to smile as he proceeded into the dip. He had found a fortune in themysterious chasm. The burden of the silver fox upon his shoulders was amost pleasing reminder of that, and he pictured the moment when thegood-natured raillery of Mukoki and Wabigoon would be suddenly turnedinto astonishment and joy. 

As he approached the cabin the young hunter tried to appear disgustedand half sick, and his effort was not bad in spite of his decidedinclination to laugh. Wabi met him in the doorway, grinning broadly, andMukoki greeted him with a throatful of his inimitable chuckles. 

"Aha, here's Rod with a packful of gold!" cried the young Indian, striking an expectant attitude. "Will you let us see the treasure?" Inspite of his banter there was gladness in his face at Rod's arrival. 

The youth threw off his pack with a spiritless effort and flopped into achair as though in the last stage of exhaustion. 

"You'll have to undo the pack, " he replied. "I'm too tired and hungry. "

Wabi's manner changed at once to one of real sympathy. 

"I'll bet you're tired, Rod, and half starved. We'll have dinner in ahurry. Ho, Muky, put on the steak, will you?"

There followed a rattle of kettles and tin pans and the Indian youthgave Rod a glad slap on the back as he hurried to the table. He wasevidently in high spirits, and burst into a snatch of song as he cut upa loaf of bread. 

"I'm tickled to see you back, " he admitted, "for I was getting a littlebit nervous. We had splendid luck on our lines yesterday. Brought inanother 'cross' and three mink. Did you see anything?"

"Aren't you going to look in the pack?"

Wabi turned and gazed at his companion with a half-curious hesitatingsmile. 

"Anything in it?" he asked suspiciously. 

"See here, boys, " cried Rod, forgetting himself in his suppressedenthusiasm. "I said there was a treasure in that chasm, and there was. Ifound it. You are welcome to look into that pack if you wish!"

Wabi dropped the knife with which he was cutting the bread and went tothe pack. He touched it with the toe of his boot, lifted it in hishands, and glanced at Rod again. 

"It isn't a joke?" he asked. 

"No. "

Rod turned his back upon the scene and began to take off his coat ascoolly as though it were the commonest thing in the world for him tobring silver foxes into camp. Only when Wabi gave a suppressed yell didhe turn about, and then he found the Indian standing erect and holdingout the silver to the astonished gaze of Mukoki. 

"Is it a good one?" he asked. 

"A beauty!" gasped Wabi. 

Mukoki had taken the animal and was examining it with the critical eyesof a connoisseur. 

"Ver' fine!" he said. "At Post heem worth fi' hundred dollars--atMontreal t'ree hundred more!"

Wabi strode across the cabin and thrust out his hand. 

"Shake, Rod!"

As the two gripped hands he turned to Mukoki. 

"Bear witness, Mukoki, that this young gentleman is no longer atenderfoot. He has shot a silver fox. He has done a whole winter's workin one day. I take off my hat to you, Mr. Drew!"

Roderick's face reddened with a flush of pleasure. 

"And that isn't all, Wabi, " he said. His eyes were filled with a suddenintense earnestness, and in the strangeness of the change Wabi forgot toloosen the grip of his fingers about his companion's hand. 

"You don't mean that you found--"

"No, I didn't find gold, " anticipated Rod. "But the gold is there! Iknow it. And I think I have found a clue. You remember that when you andI examined the skeleton against the wall we saw that it clutchedsomething that looked like birch-bark in its hand? Well, I believe thatbirch-bark holds the key to the lost mine!"

Mukoki had come beside them and stood listening to Rod, his face alivewith keen interest. In Wabi's eyes there was a look half of doubt, halfof belief. 

"It might, " he said slowly. "It wouldn't do any harm to see. "

He stepped to the stove and took off the partly cooked steak. Rodslipped on his coat and hat and Mukoki seized his belt-ax and theshovel. No words were spoken, but there was a mutual understanding thatthe investigation was to precede dinner. Wabi was silent and thoughtfuland Rod could see that his suggestion had at least made a deepimpression upon him. Mukoki's eyes began to gleam again with the oldfire with which he had searched the cabin for gold. 

The skeletons were buried only a few inches deep in the frozen earth inthe edge of the cedar forest, and Mukoki soon exposed them to view. Almost the first object that met their eyes was the skeleton handclutching its roll of birch-bark. It was Rod who dropped upon his kneesto the gruesome task. 

With a shudder at the touch of the cold bones he broke the fingers back. One of them snapped with a sharp sound, and as he rose with the bark inhis hand his face was bloodlessly white. The bones were covered againand the three returned to the cabin. 

Still silent, they gathered about the table. With age the bark of thebirch hardens and rolls itself tightly, and the piece Rod held wasalmost like thin steel. Inch by inch it was spread out, cracking andsnapping in brittle protest. The hunters could see that the bark was ina single unbroken strip about ten inches long by six in width. Twoinches, three, four were unrolled--and still the smooth surface wasblank. Another half-inch, and the bark refused to unroll farther. 

"Careful!" whispered Wabi. 

With the point of his knife he loosened the cohesion. 

"I guess--there's--nothing--" began Rod. 

Even as he spoke he caught his breath. A mark had appeared on the bark, a black, meaningless mark with a line running down from it into thescroll. 

Another fraction of an inch and the line was joined by a second, andthen with an unexpectedness that was startling the remainder of the rollreleased itself like a spring--and to the eyes of the three wolf hunterswas revealed the secret of the skeleton hand. 

Spread out before them was a map, or at least what they at once acceptedas a map, though in reality it was more of a crude diagram of straightand crooked lines, with here and there a partly obliterated word to giveit meaning. In several places there were mere evidences of words, nowentirely illegible. But what first held the attention of Rod and hiscompanions were several lines in writing under the rough sketch on thebark, still quite plain, which formed the names of three men. Roderickread them aloud. 

"John Ball, Henri Langlois, Peter Plante. "

Through the name of John Ball had been drawn a broad black line whichhad almost destroyed the letters, and at the end of this line, inbrackets, was printed a word in French which Wabi quickly translated. 

"Dead!" he breathed. "The Frenchmen killed him!"

The words shot from him in hot excitement. 

Rod did not reply. Slowly he drew a trembling finger over the map. Thefirst word he encountered was unintelligible. Of the next he could onlymake out one letter, which gave him no clue. Evidently the map had beenmade with a different and less durable substance than that with whichthe names had been written. He followed down the first straight blackline, and where this formed a junction with a wider crooked line weretwo words quite distinct:

"Second waterfall. "

Half an inch below this Rod could make out the letters T, D and L, widely scattered. 

"That's the third waterfall, " he exclaimed eagerly. 

At this point the crude lines of the diagram stopped, and immediatelybelow, between the map and the three names, it was evident that therehad been considerable writing. But not a word of it could the younghunters make out. That writing, without doubt, had given the key to thelost gold. Rod looked up, his face betraying the keenness of hisdisappointment. He knew that under his hand he held all that was left ofthe secret of a great treasure. But he was more baffled than ever. Somewhere in this vast desolation there were three waterfalls, andsomewhere near the third waterfall the Englishman and the two Frenchmenhad found their gold. That was all he knew. He had not found a waterfallin the chasm; they had not discovered one in all their trapping andhunting excursions. 

Wabi was looking down into his face in silent thought. Suddenly hereached out and seized the sheet of bark and examined it closely. As helooked there came a deeper flush in his face, his eyes brightened and hegave a cry of excitement. 

"By George, I believe we can peel this!" he cried. "See here, Muky!" Hethrust the birch under the old Indian's eyes. Even Mukoki's hands weretrembling. 

"Birch-bark is made up of a good many layers, each as thin as thethinnest paper, " he explained to Rod as Mukoki continued hisexamination. "If we can peel off that first layer, and then hold it upto the light, we shall be able to see the impression of every word thatwas ever made on it--even though they were written a hundred years ago!"

Mukoki had gone to the door, and now he turned, grinning exultantly. 

"She peel!"

He showed them where he had stripped back a corner of the film-likelayer. Then he sat down in the light, his head bent over, and for manyminutes he worked at his tedious task while Wabi and Rod hung back insoundless suspense. Half an hour later Mukoki straightened himself, roseto his feet and held out the precious film to Rod. 

As tenderly as though his own life depended upon its care, Rod held thepiece of birch, now a silken, almost transparent sheet, between himselfand the light. A cry welled up into his throat. It was repeated by Wabi. And then there was silence--a silence broken only by their bated breathsand the excited thumpings of their hearts. 

As though they had been written but yesterday, the mysterious words onthe map were disclosed to their eyes. Where Rod had made out only threeletters there were now plainly discernible the two words "thirdwaterfall, " and very near to these was the word "cabin. " Below them wereseveral lines, clearly impressed in the birch film. Slowly, his voicetrembling, Rod read them to his companions. 

"We, John Ball, Henri Langlois, and Peter Plante, having discovered goldat this fall, do hereby agree to joint partnership in the same, and dopledge ourselves to forget our past differences and work in mutual goodwill and honesty, so help us God. Signed, "JOHN BALL, HENRI LANGLOIS, PETER PLANTE. "

At the very top of the map the impression of several other words caughtRod's eyes. They were more indistinct than any of the others, but one byone he made them out. A hot blurring film seemed to fall over his eyesand he felt as though his heart had suddenly come up into his throat. Wabi's breath was burning against his cheek, and it was Wabi who spokethe words aloud. 

"Cabin and head of chasm. "

Rod went back to the table and sat down, the precious bit of birch-barkunder his hand. Mukoki, standing mute, had listened and heard, and wasas if stunned by their discovery. But now his mind returned to the moosesteak, and he placed it on the stove. Wabi stood with his hands in hispockets, and after a little he laughed a trembling, happy laugh. 

"Well, Rod, you've found your mine. You are as good as rich!"

"You mean that we have found our mine, " corrected the white youth. "Weare three, and we just naturally fill the places of John Ball, HenriLanglois and Peter Plante. They are all dead. The gold is ours!"

Wabi had taken up the map. 

"I can't see the slightest possibility of our not finding it, " he said. "The directions are as plain as day. We follow the chasm, and somewherein that chasm we come to a waterfall. A little beyond this the creekthat runs through the gorge empties into a larger stream, and we followthis second creek or river until we come to the third fall. The cabin isthere, and the gold can not be far away. "

He had carried the map to the door again, and Rod joined him. 

"There is nothing that gives us an idea of distance on the map, " hecontinued. "How far did you travel down the chasm?"

"Ten miles, at least, " replied Rod. 

"And you discovered no fall?"

"No. "

With a splinter picked up from the floor Wabi measured the distancesbetween the different points on the diagram. 

"There is no doubt but what this map was drawn by John Ball, " he saidafter a few moments of silent contemplation. "Everything points to thatfact. Notice that all of the writing is in one hand, except thesignatures of Langlois and Plante, and you could hardly decipher theletters in those signatures if you did not already know their names fromthis writing below. Ball wrote a good hand, and from the construction ofthe agreement over the signatures he was a man of pretty fair education. Don't you think so? Well, he must have drawn this map with some idea ofdistance in his mind. The second fall is only half as far from the firstfall as the third fall is from the second, which seems to me conclusiveevidence of this. If he had not had distance in mind he would not haveseparated the falls in this way on the map. "

"Then if we can find the first fall we can figure pretty nearly how farthe last fall is from the head of the chasm, " said Rod. 

"Yes. I believe the distance from here to the first fall will give us akey to the whole thing. "

Rod had produced a pencil from one of his pockets and was figuring onthe smooth side of a chip. 

"The gold is a long way from here at the best, Wabi. I explored thechasm for ten miles. Say that we find the first fall within fifteenmiles. Then, according to the map, the second fall would be about twentymiles from the first, and the third forty miles from the second. If thefirst fall is within fifteen miles of this cabin the third fall is atleast seventy-five miles away. "

Wabi nodded. 

"But we may not find the first fall within that distance, " he said. "ByGeorge--" He stopped and looked at Rod with an odd look of doubt in hisface. "If the gold is seventy-five or a hundred miles away, why werethose men here, and with only a handful of nuggets in their possession?Is it possible that the gold played out--that they found only what wasin the buckskin bag?"

"If that were so, why should they have fought to the death for thepossession of the map?" argued Rod. 

Mukoki was turning the steak. He had not spoken, but now he said:

"Mebby going to Post for supplies. "

"That's exactly what they were doing!" shouted the Indian youth. "Muky, you have solved the whole problem. They were going for supplies. Andthey didn't fight for the map--not for the map alone!"

His face flushed with new excitement. 

"Perhaps I am wrong, but it all seems clear to me now, " he continued. "Ball and the two Frenchmen worked their find until they ran out ofsupplies. Wabinosh House is over a hundred years old, and fifty yearsago that was the nearest point where they could get more. In some way itfell to the Frenchmen to go. They had probably accumulated a hoard ofgold, and before they left they murdered Ball. They brought with themonly enough gold to pay for their supplies, for it was their purpose notto arouse the suspicion of any adventurers who happened to be at thePost. They could easily have explained their possession of those fewnuggets. In this cabin either Langlois or Plante tried to kill hiscompanion, and thus become the sole possessor of the treasure, and thefight, fatal to both, ensued. I may be wrong, but--by George, I believethat is what happened!"

"And that they buried the bulk of their gold somewhere back near thethird fall?"

"Yes; or else they brought the gold here and buried it somewhere nearthis very cabin!"

They were interrupted by Mukoki. 

"Dinner ready!" he called. 

CHAPTER XIII

SNOWED IN

Until the present moment Rod had forgotten to speak of the mysteriousman-trail he had encountered in the chasm. The excitement of the pasthour had made him oblivious to all other things, but now as they atetheir dinner he described the strange maneuvers of the spying Woonga. Hedid not, however, voice those fears which had come to him in the gorge, preferring to allow Mukoki and Wabigoon to draw their own conclusions. By this time the two Indians were satisfied that the Woongas were notcontemplating attack, but that for some unaccountable reason they wereas anxious to evade the hunters as the hunters were to evade them. Everything that had passed seemed to give evidence of this. The outlawin the chasm, for instance, could easily have waylaid Rod; a dozen timesthe almost defenseless camp could have been attacked, and there wereinnumerable places where ambushes might have been laid for them alongthe trap-lines. 

So Rod's experience with the Woonga trail between the mountainsoccasioned little uneasiness, and instead of forming a scheme for thefurther investigation of this trail on the south, plans were made forlocating the first fall. Mukoki was the swiftest and most tirelesstraveler on snow-shoes, and it was he who volunteered to make the firstsearch. He would leave the following morning, taking with him a supplyof food, and during his absence Rod and Wabigoon would attend to thetraps. 

"We must have the location of the first fall before we return to thePost, " declared Wabi. "If from that we find that the third fall is notwithin a hundred miles of our present camp it will be impossible for usto go in search of our gold during this trip. In that event we shallhave to go back to Wabinosh House and form a new expedition, with freshsupplies and the proper kind of tools. We can not do anything until thespring freshets are over, anyway. "

"I have been thinking of that, " replied Rod, his eyes softening. "Youknow mother is alone, and--her--"

"I understand, " interrupted the Indian boy, laying a hand fondly acrosshis companion's arm. 

"--her funds are small, you know, " Rod finished. "If she has beensick--or--anything like that--"

"Yes, we've got to get back with our furs, " helped Wabi, a tremor oftenderness in his own voice. "And if you don't mind, Rod, I might take alittle run down to Detroit with you. Do you suppose she would care?"

"Care!" shouted Rod, bringing his free hand down upon Wabi's arm with aforce that hurt. "Care! Why, she thinks as much of you as she does ofme, Wabi! She'd be tickled to death! Do you mean it?"

Wabi's bronzed face flushed a deeper red at his friend's enthusiasm. 

"I won't promise--for sure, " he said. "But I'd like to see her--almostas much as you, I guess. If I can, I'll go. "

Rod's face was suffused with a joyful glow. 

"And I'll come back with you early in the summer and we'll start out forthe gold, " he cried. He jumped to his feet and slapped Mukoki on theback in the happy turn his mind had taken. "Will you come, too, Mukoki?I'll give you the biggest 'city time' you ever had in your life!"

The old Indian grinned and chuckled and grunted, but did not reply inwords. Wabi laughed, and answered for him. 

"He is too anxious to become Minnetaki's slave again, Rod. No, Mukywon't go, I'll wager that. He will stay at the Post to see that shedoesn't get lost, or hurt, or stolen by the Woongas. Eh, Mukoki?" Mukokinodded, grinning good-humoredly. He went to the door, opened it andlooked out. 

"Devil--she snow!" he cried. "She snow like twent' t'ousand--likedevil!"

This was the strongest English in the old warrior's vocabulary, and itmeant something more than usual. Wabi and Rod quickly joined him. Neverin his life had the city youth seen a snow-storm like that which he nowgazed out into. The great north storm had arrived--a storm which comesjust once each year in the endless Arctic desolation. For days and weeksthe Indians had expected it and wondered at its lateness. It fellsoftly, silently, without a breath of air to stir it; a smothering, voiceless sea of white, impenetrable to human vision, so thick that itseemed as though it might stifle one's breath. Rod held out the palm ofhis hand and in an instant it was covered with a film of white. Hewalked out into it, and a dozen yards away he became a ghostly, almostinvisible shadow. 

When he came back a minute later he brought a load of snow into thecabin with him. 

All that afternoon the snow fell like this, and all that night the stormcontinued. When he awoke in the morning Rod heard the wind whistling andhowling through the trees and around the ends of the cabin. He rose andbuilt the fire while the others were still sleeping. He attempted toopen the door, but it was blocked. He lowered the barricade at thewindow, and a barrel of snow tumbled in about his feet. He could see nosign of day, and when he turned he saw Wabi sitting up in his blankets, laughing silently at his wonder and consternation. 

"What in the world--" he gasped. 

"We're snowed in, " grinned Wabi. "Does the stove smoke?"

"No, " replied Rod, throwing a bewildered glance at the roaring fire. "You don't mean to say--"

"Then we are not completely, buried, " interrupted the other. "At leastthe top of the chimney is sticking out!"

Mukoki sat up and stretched himself. 

"She blow, " he said, as a tremendous howl of wind swept over the cabin. "Bime-by she blow some more!"

Rod shoveled the snow into a corner and replaced the barricade while hiscompanions dressed. 

"This means a week's work digging out traps, " declared Wabi. "And onlyMukoki's Great Spirit, who sends all blessings to this country, knowswhen the blizzard is going to stop. It may last a week. There is nochance of finding our waterfall in this. "

"We can play dominoes, " suggested Rod cheerfully. "You remember wehaven't finished that series we began at the Post. But you don't expectme to believe that it snowed enough yesterday afternoon and last nightto cover this cabin, do you?"

"It didn't exactly _snow_ enough to cover it, " explained his comrade. "But we're covered for all of that. The cabin is on the edge of an open, and of course the snow just naturally drifts around us, blown there bythe wind. If this blizzard keeps up we shall be under a small mountainby night. "

"Won't it--smother us?" faltered Rod. 

Wabi gave a joyous whoop of merriment at the city-bred youth'shalf-expressed fear and a volley of Mukoki's chuckles came from where hewas slicing moose-steak on the table. 

"Snow mighty nice thing live under, " he asserted with emphasis. 

"If you were under a mountain of snow you could live, if you weren'tcrushed to death, " said Wabi. "Snow is filled with air. Mukoki wascaught under a snow-slide once and was buried under thirty feet for tenhours. He had made a nest about as big as a barrel and was nice andcomfortable when we dug him out. We won't have to burn much wood to keepwarm now. "

After breakfast the boys again lowered the barricade at the window andWabi began to bring small avalanches of snow down into the cabin withhis shovel. At the third or fourth upward thrust a huge mass plungedthrough the window, burying them to the waist, and when they looked outthey could see the light of day and the whirling blizzard above theirheads. 

"It's up to the roof, " gasped Rod. "Great Scott, what a snow-storm!"

"Now for some fun!" cried the Indian youth. "Come on, Rod, if you wantto be in it. "

He crawled through the window into the cavity he had made in the drift, and Rod followed. Wabi waited, a mischievous smile on his face, and nosooner had his companion joined him than he plunged his shovel deep intothe base of the drift. Half a dozen quick thrusts and there tumbled downupon their heads a mass of light snow that for a few moments completelyburied them. The suddenness of it knocked Rod to his knees, where hefloundered, gasped and made a vain effort to yell. Struggling like afish he first kicked his feet free, and Wabi, who had thrust out hishead and shoulders, shrieked with laughter as he saw only Rod's bootssticking out of the snow. 

"You're going the wrong way, Rod!" he shouted. "Wow--wow!"

He seized his companion's legs and helped to drag him out, and thenstood shaking, the tears streaming down his face, and continued to laughuntil he leaned back in the drift, half exhausted. Rod was a curious andludicrous-looking object. His eyes were wide and blinking; the snow wasin his ears, his mouth, and in his floundering he had packed his coatcollar full of it. Slowly he recovered from his astonishment, saw Wabiand Mukoki quivering with laughter, grinned--and then joined them intheir merriment. 

It was not difficult now for the boys to force their way through thedrift and they were soon standing waist-deep in the snow twenty yardsfrom the cabin. 

"The snow is only about four feet deep in the open, " said Wabi. "Butlook at that!"

He turned and gazed at the cabin, or rather at the small part of itwhich still rose triumphant above the huge drift which had almostcompletely buried it. Only a little of the roof, with the smokingchimney rising out of it, was to be seen. Rod now turned in alldirections to survey the wild scene about him. There had come a brieflull in the blizzard, and his vision extended beyond the lake and to thehilltop. There was not a spot of black to meet his eyes; every rock washidden; the trees hung silent and lifeless under their heavy mantles andeven their trunks were beaten white with the clinging volleys of thestorm. There came to him then a thought of the wild things in thisseemingly uninhabitable desolation. How could they live in this endlessdesert of snow? What could they find to eat? Where could they find waterto drink? He asked Wabi these questions after they had returned to thecabin. 

"Just now, if you traveled from here to the end of this storm zone youwouldn't find a living four-legged creature, " said Wabigoon. "Everymoose in this country, every deer and caribou, every fox and wolf, isburied in the snow. And as the snow falls deeper about them the warmerand more comfortable do they become, so that even as the blizzardincreases in fury the kind Creator makes it easier for them to bear. When the storm ceases the wilderness will awaken into life again. Themoose and deer and caribou will rise from their snow-beds and begin toeat the boughs of trees and saplings; a crust will have formed on thesnow, and all the smaller animals, like foxes, lynx and wolves, willbegin to travel again, and to prey upon others for food. Until they findrunning water again snow and ice take the place of liquid drink; warmcaverns dug in the snow give refuge in place of thick swamp moss andbrush and leaves. All the big animals, like moose, deer and caribou, will soon make 'yards' for themselves by trampling down large areas ofsnow, and in these yards they will gather in big herds, eating their waythrough the forests, fighting the wolves and waiting for spring. Oh, life isn't altogether bad for the animals in a deep winter like this!"

Until noon the hunters were busy cleaning away the snow from the cabindoor. As the day advanced the blizzard increased in its fury, until, with the approach of night, it became impossible for the hunters toexpose themselves to it. For three days the storm continued with onlyintermittent lulls, but with the dawn of the fourth day the sky wasagain cloudless, and the sun rose with a blinding effulgence. Rod nowfound himself suffering from that sure affliction of every tenderfoot inthe far North--snow-blindness. For only a few minutes at a time could hestand the dazzling reflections of the snow-waste where nothing butwhite, flashing, scintillating white, seemingly a vast sea of burningelectric points in the sunlight, met his aching eyes. On the second dayafter the storm, while Wabi was still inuring Rod to the changed worldand teaching him how to accustom his eyes to it gradually, Mukoki leftthe cabin to follow the chasm in his search for the first waterfall. 

That same day Wabi began his work of digging out and resetting thetraps, but it was not until the day following that Rod's eyes wouldallow him to assist. The task was a most difficult one; rocks and otherlandmarks were completely hidden, and the lost traps averaged one out offour. It was not until the end of the second day after Mukoki'sdeparture that the young hunters finished the mountain trap-line, andwhen they turned their faces toward camp just at the beginning of duskit was with the expectant hope that they would find the old Indianawaiting them. But Mukoki had not returned. The next day came andpassed, and a fourth dawned without his arrival. Hope now gave way tofear. In three days Mukoki could travel nearly a hundred miles. Was itpossible that something had happened to him? Many times there recurredto Rod a thought of the Woonga in the chasm. Had the mysterious spy, orsome of his people, waylaid and killed him?

Neither of the hunters had a desire to leave camp during the fourth day. Trapping was exceptionally good now on account of the scarcity of animalfood and since the big storm they had captured a wolf, two lynx, a redfox and eight mink. But as Mukoki's absence lengthened their enthusiasmgrew less. 

In the afternoon, as they were watching, they saw a figure climb wearilyto the summit of the hill. 

It was Mukoki. 

With shouts of greeting both youths hurried through the snow toward him, not taking time to strap on their snow-shoes. The old Indian was attheir side a couple of minutes later. He smiled in a tired good-naturedway, and answered the eagerness in their eyes with a nod of his head. 

"Found fall. Fift' mile down mountain. "

Once in the cabin he dropped into a chair, exhausted, and both Rod andWabigoon joined in relieving him of his boots and outer garments. It wasevident that Mukoki had been traveling hard, for only once or twicebefore in his life had Wabi seen him so completely fatigued. Quickly theyoung Indian had a huge steak broiling over the fire, and Rod put anextra handful of coffee in the pot. 

"Fifty miles!" ejaculated Wabi for the twentieth time. "It was an awfuljaunt, wasn't it, Muky?"

"Rough--rough like devil th'ough mountains, " replied Mukoki. "Not likethat!" He swung an arm in the direction of the chasm. 

Rod stood silent, open-eyed with wonder. Was it possible that the oldwarrior had discovered a wilder country than that through which he hadpassed in the chasm?

"She little fall, " went on Mukoki, brightening as the odor of coffee andmeat filled his nostrils. "No bigger than--that!" He pointed to the roofof the cabin. 

Rod was figuring on the table. Soon he looked up. 

"According to Mukoki and the map we are at least two hundred and fiftymiles from the third fall, " he said. 

Mukoki shrugged his shoulders and his face was crinkled in a suggestivegrimace. 

"Hudson Bay, " he grunted. 

Wabi turned from his steak in sudden astonishment. 

"Doesn't the chasm continue east?" he almost shouted. 

"No. She turn--straight north. "

Rod could not understand the change that came over Wabi's face. 

"Boys, " he said finally, "if that is the case I can tell you where thegold is. If the stream in the chasm turns northward it is bound for justone place--the Albany River, and the Albany River empties into JamesBay! The third waterfall, where our treasure in gold is waiting for us, is in the very heart of the wildest and most savage wilderness in NorthAmerica. It is safe. No other man has ever found it. But to get it meansone of the longest and most adventurous expeditions we ever planned inall our lives!"

"Hurrah!" shouted Rod. "Hurrah--"

He had leaped to his feet, forgetful of everything but that their goldwas safe, and that their search for it would lead them even to the lastfastnesses of the snow-bound and romantic North. 

"Next spring, Wabi!" He held out his hand and the two boys joined theirpledge in a hearty grip. 

"Next spring!" reiterated Wabi. 

"And we go in canoe, " joined Mukoki. "Creek grow bigger. We makebirch-bark canoe at first fall. "

"That is better still, " added Wabi. "It will be a glorious trip! We'lltake a little vacation at the third fall and run up to James Bay. "

"James Bay is practically the same as Hudson Bay, isn't it?" asked Rod. 

"Yes. I could never see a good reason for calling it James Bay. It is inreality the lower end, or tail, of Hudson Bay. "

There was no thought of visiting any of the traps that day, and the nextmorning Mukoki insisted upon going with Rod, in spite of his four daysof hard travel. If he remained in camp his joints would get stiff, hesaid, and Wabigoon thought he was right. This left the young Indian tocare for the trap-line leading into the north. 

Two weeks of ideal trapping weather now followed. It had been more thantwo months since the hunters had left Wabinosh House, and Rod now beganto count the days before they would turn back over the homeward trail. Wabi had estimated that they had sixteen hundred dollars' worth of fursand scalps and two hundred dollars in gold, and the white youth wassatisfied to return to his mother with his share of six hundred dollars, which was as much as he would have earned in a year at his old positionin the city. Neither did he attempt to conceal from Wabi his desire tosee Minnetaki; and his Indian friend, thoroughly pleased at Rod's likingfor his sister, took much pleasure in frequent good-natured banter onthe subject. In fact, Rod possessed a secret hope that he might inducethe princess mother to allow her daughter to accompany himself and Wabito Detroit, where he knew that his own mother would immediately fall inlove with the beautiful little maiden from the North. 

In the third week after the great storm Rod and Mukoki had gone over themountain trap-line, leaving Wabi in camp. They had decided that thefollowing week would see them headed for Wabinosh House, where theywould arrive about the first of February, and Roderick was in highspirits. 

On this day they had started toward camp early in the afternoon, andsoon after they had passed through the swamp Rod expressed his intentionof ascending the ridge, hoping to get a shot at game somewhere along themountain trail home. Mukoki, however, decided not to accompany him, butto take the nearer and easier route. 

On the top of the mountain Rod paused to take a survey of the countryabout him. He could see Mukoki, now hardly more than a moving speck onthe edge of the plain; northward the same fascinating, never-endingwilderness rolled away under his eyes; eastward, two miles away, he sawa moving object which he knew was a moose or a caribou; and westward--

Instinctively his eyes sought the location of their camp. Instantly theexpectant light went out of his face. He gave an involuntary cry ofhorror, and there followed it a single, unheard shriek for Mukoki. 

Over the spot where he knew their camp to be now rose a huge volume ofsmoke. The sky was black with it, and in the terrible moment thatfollowed his piercing cry for Mukoki he fancied that he heard the soundof rifle-shots. 

"Mukoki! Mukoki!" he shouted. 

The old Indian was beyond hearing. Quickly it occurred to Rod that earlyin their trip they had arranged rifle signals for calling help--twoquick shots, and then, after a moment's interval, three others in rapidsuccession. 

He threw his rifle to his shoulder and fired into the air; once, twice--and then three times as fast as he could press the trigger. 

As he watched Mukoki he reloaded. He saw the Indian pause, turn aboutand look back toward the mountain. 

Again the thrilling signals for help went echoing over the plains. In afew seconds the sounds had reached Mukoki's ears and the old warriorcame swinging back at running speed. 

Rod darted along the ridge to meet him, firing a single shot now andthen to let him know where he was, and in fifteen minutes Mukoki camepanting up the mountain. 

"The Woongas!" shouted Rod. "They've attacked the camp! See!" He pointedto the cloud of smoke. "I heard shots--I heard shots--"

For an instant the grim pathfinder gazed in the direction of the burningcamp, and then without a word he started at terrific speed down themountain. 

The half-hour race that followed was one of the most excitingexperiences of Rod's life. How he kept up with Mukoki was more than heever could explain afterward. But from the time they struck the oldtrail he was close at the Indian's heels. When they reached the hillthat sheltered the dip his face was scratched and bleeding from contactwith swinging bushes; his heart seemed ready to burst from itstremendous exertion; his breath came in an audible hissing, rattlingsound, and he could not speak. But up the hill he plunged behind Mukoki, his rifle cocked and ready. At the top they paused. 

The camp was a smoldering mass of ruins. Not a sign of life was aboutit. But--

With a gasping, wordless cry Rod caught Mukoki's arm and pointed to anobject lying in the snow a dozen yards from where the cabin had been. The warrior had seen it. He turned one look upon the white youth, and itwas a look that Rod had never thought could come into the face of ahuman being. If that was Wabi down there--if Wabi had been killed--whatwould Mukoki's vengeance be! His companion was no longer Mukoki--as hehad known him; he was the savage. There was no mercy, no human instinct, no suggestion of the human soul in that one terrible look. If it wasWabi--

They plunged down the hill, into the dip, across the lake, and Mukokiwas on his knees beside the figure in the snow. He turned it over--androse without a sound, his battle-glaring eyes peering into the smokingruins. 

Rod looked, and shuddered. 

The figure in the snow was not Wabi. 

It was a strange, terrible-looking object--a giant Indian, distorted indeath--and a half of his head was shot away!

When he again looked at Mukoki the old Indian was in the midst of thehot ruins, kicking about with his booted feet and poking with the buttof his rifle. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE RESCUE OF WABIGOON

Rod had sunk into the snow close to the dead man. His endurance was goneand he was as weak as a child. He watched every movement Mukoki made;saw every start, every glance, and became almost sick with fear wheneverthe warrior bent down to examine some object. 

Was Wabi dead--and burned in those ruins?

Foot by foot Mukoki searched. His feet became hot; the smell of burningleather filled his nostrils; glowing coals burned through to his feet. But the old Indian was beyond pain. Only two things filled his soul. Oneof these was love for Minnetaki; the other was love for Wabigoon. Andthere was only one other thing that could take the place of these, andthat was merciless, undying, savage passion--passion at any wrong orinjury that might be done to them. The Woongas had sneaked upon Wabi. Heknew that. They had caught him unaware, like cowards; and perhaps he wasdead--and in those ruins!

He searched until his feet were scorched and burned in a score ofplaces, and then he came out, smoke-blackened, but with some of theterrible look gone out of his face. 

"He no there!" he said, speaking for the first time. 

Again he crouched beside the dead man, and grimaced at Rod with atriumphant, gloating chuckle. 

"Much dead!" he grinned. 

In a moment the grimace had gone from his face, and while Rod stillrested he continued his examination of the camp. Close around it thesnow was beaten down with human tracks. Mukoki saw where the outlaws hadstolen up behind the cabin from the forest and he saw where they hadgone away after the attack. 

Five had come down from the cedars, only four had gone away!

Where was Wabi?

If he had been captured, and taken with the Indians, there would havebeen five trails. Rod understood this as well as Mukoki, and he alsounderstood why his companion went back to make another investigation ofthe smoldering ruins. This second search, however, convinced the Indianthat Wabi's body had not been thrown into the fire. There was only oneconclusion to draw. The youth had made a desperate fight, had killed oneof the outlaws, and after being wounded in the conflict had been carriedoff bodily. Wabi and his captors could not be more than two or threemiles away. A quick pursuit would probably overtake them within an hour. 

Mukoki came to Rod's side. 

"Me follow--kill!" he said. "Me kill so many quick!" He pointed towardthe four trails. "You stay--"

Rod clambered to his feet. 

"You mean we'll kill 'em, Muky, " he broke in. "I can follow you again. Set the pace!"

There came the click of the safety on Mukoki's rifle, and Rod, followingsuit, cocked his own. 

"Much quiet, " whispered the Indian when they had come to the fartherside of the dip. "No noise--come up still--shoot!"

The snow-shoe trail of the outlaws turned from the dip into the timberedbottoms to the north, and Mukoki, partly crouched, his rifle always tothe front, followed swiftly. They had not progressed a hundred yardsinto the plain when the old hunter stopped, a puzzled look in his face. He pointed to one of the snow-shoe trails which was much deeper than theothers. 

"Heem carry Wabi, " he spoke softly. "But--" His eyes gleamed in suddenexcitement. "They go slow! They no hurry! Walk very slow! Take muchtime!"

Rod now observed for the first time that the individual tracks made bythe outlaws were much shorter than their own, showing that instead ofbeing in haste they were traveling quite slowly. This was a mysterywhich was not easy to explain. Did the Woongas not fear pursuit? Was itpossible that they believed the hunters would not hasten to give thembattle? Or were they relying upon the strength of their numbers, or, perhaps, planning some kind of ambush?

Mukoki's advance now became slower and more cautious. His keen eyes tookin every tree and clump of bushes ahead. Only when he could see thetrail leading straight away for a considerable distance did he hastenthe pursuit. Never for an instant did he turn his head to Rod. Butsuddenly he caught sight of something that brought from him a gutturalsound of astonishment. A fifth track had joined the trail! Withoutquestioning Rod knew what it meant. Wabi had been lowered from the backof his captor and was now walking. He was on snow-shoes and his strideswere quite even and of equal length with the others. Evidently he wasnot badly wounded. 

Half a mile ahead of them was a high hill and between them and this hillwas a dense growth of cedar, filled with tangled windfalls. It was anideal place for an ambush, but the old warrior did not hesitate. TheWoongas had followed a moose trail, with which they were apparently wellacquainted, and in this traveling was easy. But Rod gave an involuntaryshudder as he gazed ahead into the chaotic tangle through which it led. At any moment he expected to hear the sharp crack of a rifle and to seeMukoki tumble forward upon his face. Or there might be a fusillade ofshots and he himself might feel the burning sting that comes with rifledeath. At the distance from which they would shoot the outlaws could notmiss. Did not Mukoki realize this? Maddened by the thought that hisbeloved Wabi was in the hands of merciless enemies, was the oldpathfinder becoming reckless?

But when he looked into his companion's face and saw the cool deadlyresolution glittering in his eyes, the youth's confidence was restored. For some reason Mukoki knew that there would not be an ambush. 

Over the moose-run the two traveled more swiftly and soon they came tothe foot of the high hill. Up this the Woongas had gone, their trailclearly defined and unswerving in its direction. Mukoki now paused witha warning gesture to Rod, and pointed down at one of the snow-shoetracks. The snow was still crumbling and falling about the edges of thisimprint. 

"Ver' close!" whispered the Indian. 

It was not the light of the game hunt in Mukoki's eyes now; there was atrembling, terrible tenseness in his whispered words. He crept up thehill with Rod so near that he could have touched him. At the summit ofthat hill he dragged himself up like an animal, and then, crouching, ranswiftly to the opposite side, his rifle within six inches of hisshoulder. In the plain below them was unfolded to their eyes a scenewhich, despite his companion's warning, wrung an exclamation of dismayfrom Roderick's lips. 

[Illustration: The leader stopped in his snow-shoes]

Plainly visible to them in the edge of the plain were the outlaw Woongasand their captive. They were in single file, with Wabi following theleader, and the hunters perceived that their comrade's arms were tiedbehind him. 

But it was another sight that caused Rod's dismay. 

From an opening beside a small lake half a mile beyond the Indians belowthere rose the smoke of two camp-fires, and Mukoki and he could make outat least a score of figures about these fires. 

Within rifle-shot of them, almost within shouting distance, there wasnot only the small war party that had attacked the camp, but a third ofthe fighting men of the Woonga tribe! Rod understood their terriblepredicament. To attack the outlaws in an effort to rescue Wabi meantthat an overwhelming force would be upon them within a few minutes; toallow Wabi to remain a captive meant--he shuddered at the thought ofwhat it might mean, for he knew of the merciless vengeance of theWoongas upon the House of Wabinosh. 

And while he was thinking of these things the faithful old warriorbeside him had already formed his plan of attack. He would die withWabi, gladly--a fighting, terrible slave to devotion to the last; but hewould not see Wabi die alone. A whispered word, a last look at hisrifle, and Mukoki hurried down into the plains. 

At the foot of the hill he abandoned the outlaw trail and Rod realizedthat his plan was to sweep swiftly in a semicircle, surprising theWoongas from the front or side instead of approaching from the rear. Again he was taxed to his utmost to keep pace with the avenging Mukoki. Less than ten minutes later the Indian peered cautiously from behind aclump of hazel, and then looked back at Rod, a smile of satisfaction onhis face. 

"They come, " he breathed, just loud enough to hear. "They come!"

Rod peered over his shoulder, and his heart smote mightily within him. Unconscious of their peril the Woongas were approaching two hundredyards away. Mukoki gazed into his companion's face and his eyes werealmost pleading as he laid a bronzed crinkled hand upon the white boy'sarm. 

"You take front man--ahead of Wabi, " he whispered. "I take other t'ree. See that tree--heem birch, with bark off? Shoot heem there. You notremble? You no miss?"

"No, " replied Rod. He gripped the red hand in his own. "I'll kill, Mukoki. I'll kill him dead--in one shot!"

They could hear the voices of the outlaws now, and soon they saw thatWabi's face was disfigured with blood. 

Step by step, slowly and carelessly, the Woongas approached. They werefifty yards from the marked birch now--forty--thirty--now only ten. Roderick's rifle was at his shoulder. Already it held a deadly bead onthe breast of the leader. 

Five yards more--

The outlaw passed behind the tree; he came out, and the young hunterpressed the trigger. The leader stopped in his snow-shoes. Even beforehe had crumpled down into a lifeless heap in the snow a furious volleyof shots spat forth from Mukoki's gun, and when Rod swung his own rifleto join again in the fray he found that only one of the four wasstanding, and he with his hands to his breast as he tottered about tofall. But from some one of those who had fallen there had gone out awild, terrible cry, and even as Rod and Makoki rushed out to freeWabigoon there came an answering yell from the direction of the Woongacamp. 

Mukoki's knife was in his hand by the time he reached Wabi, and with oneor two slashes he had released his hands. 

"You hurt--bad?" he asked. 

"No--no!" replied Wabi. "I knew you'd come, boys--dear old friends!"

As he spoke he turned to the fallen leader and Rod saw him takepossession of the rifle and revolver which he had lost in their fightwith the Woongas weeks before. Mukoki had already spied their preciouspack of furs on one of the outlaw's backs, and he flung it over his own. 

"You saw the camp?" queried Wabi excitedly. 

"Yes. "

"They will be upon us in a minute! Which way, Mukoki?"

"The chasm!" half shouted Rod. "The chasm! If we can reach the chasm--"

"The chasm!" reiterated Wabigoon. 

Mukoki had fallen behind and motioned for Wabi and Rod to take the lead. Even now he was determined to take the brunt of danger by bringing upthe rear. 

There was no time for argument and Wabigoon set off at a rapid pace. From behind there came the click of shells as the Indian loaded hisrifle on the run. While the other two had been busy at the scene of theambush Rod had replaced his empty shell, and now, as he led, Wabiexamined the armament that had been stolen from them by the outlaws. 

"How many shells have you got, Rod?" he asked over his shoulder. 

"Forty-nine. "

"There's only four left in this belt besides five in the gun, " calledback the Indian youth. "Give me--some. "

Without halting Rod plucked a dozen cartridges from his belt and passedthem on. 

Now they had reached the hill. At its summit they paused to recovertheir breath and take a look at the camp. 

The fires were deserted. A quarter of a mile out on the plain they sawhalf a dozen of their pursuers speeding toward the hill. The rest werealready concealed in the nearer thickets of the bottom. 

"We must beat them to the chasm!" said the young Indian. 

As he spoke Wabi turned and led the way again. 

Rod's heart fell like a lump within him. We must beat them to the chasm!Those words of Wabi's brought him to the terrible realization that hisown powers of endurance were rapidly ebbing. His race behind Mukoki tothe burning cabin had seemed to rob the life from the muscles of hislimbs, and each step now added to his weakness. And the chasm was a milebeyond the dip, and the entrance into that chasm still two milesfarther. Three miles! Could he hold out?

He heard Mukoki thumping along behind him; ahead of him Wabi wasunconsciously widening the distance between them. He made a powerfuleffort to close the breach, but it was futile. Then from close in hisrear there came a warning halloo from the old Indian, and Wabi turned. 

"He run t'ree mile to burning cabin, " said Mukoki. "He no make chasm!"

Rod was deathly white and breathing so hard that he could not speak. Thequick-witted Wabi at once realized their situation. 

"There is just one thing for us to do, Muky. We must stop the Woongas atthe dip. We'll fire down upon them from the top of the hill beyond thelake. We can drop three or four of them and they won't dare to comestraight after us then. They will think we are going to fight them fromthere and will take time to sneak around us. Meanwhile we'll get a goodlead in the direction of the chasm. "

He led off again, this time a little slower. Three minutes later theyentered into the dip, crossed it safely, and were already at the foot ofthe hill, when from the opposite side of the hollow there came atriumphant blood-curdling yell. 

"Hurry!" shouted Wabi. "They see us!" Even as he spoke there came thecrack of a rifle. 

Bzzzzzzz-inggggg!

For the first time in his life Rod heard that terrible death-song of abullet close to his head and saw the snow fly up a dozen feet beyond theyoung Indian. 

For an interval of twenty seconds there was silence; then there cameanother shot, and after that three others in quick succession. Wabistumbled. 

"Not hit!" he called, scrambling to his feet. "Confound--that rock!"

He rose to the hilltop with Rod close behind him, and from the oppositeside of the lake there came a fusillade of half a dozen shots. Instinctively Rod dropped upon his face. And in that instant, as he layin the snow, he heard the sickening thud of a bullet and a sharp suddencry of pain from Mukoki. But the old warrior came up beside him and theypassed into the shelter of the hilltop together. 

"Is it bad? Is it bad, Mukoki? Is it bad--" Wabi was almost sobbing ashe turned and threw an arm around the old Indian. "Are you hit--bad?"

Mukoki staggered, but caught himself. 

"In here, " he said, putting a hand to his left shoulder. "She--no--bad. "He smiled, courage gleaming with pain in his eyes, and swung off thelight pack of furs. "We give 'em--devil--here!"

Crouching, they peered over the edge of the hill. Half a dozen Woongashad already left the cedars and were following swiftly across the open. Others broke from the cover, and Wabi saw that a number of them werewithout snow-shoes. He exultantly drew Mukoki's attention to this fact, but the latter did not lift his eyes. In a few moments he spoke. 

"Now we give 'em--devil!"

Eight pursuers on snow-shoes were in the open of the dip. Six of themhad reached the lake. Rod held his fire. He knew that it was now moreimportant for him to recover his wind than to fight, and he drew greatdrafts of air into his lungs while his two comrades leveled theirrifles. He could fire after they were done if it was necessary. 

There was slow deadly deliberation in the way Mukoki and Wabigoonsighted along their rifle-barrels. Mukoki fired first; one shot, two--with a second's interval between--and an outlaw half-way across thelake pitched forward into the snow. As he fell, Wabi fired once, andthere came to their ears shriek after shriek of agony as a secondpursuer fell with a shattered leg. At the cries and shots of battle thehot blood rushed through Rod's veins, and with an excited shout ofdefiance he brought his rifle to his shoulder and in unison the threeguns sent fire and death into the dip below. 

Only three of the eight Woongas remained and they had turned and wererunning toward the shelter of the cedars. 

"Hurrah!" shouted Rod. 

In his excitement he got upon his feet and sent his fifth and last shotafter the fleeing outlaws. "Hurrah! Wow! Let's go after 'em!"

"Get down!" commanded Wabi. "Load in a hurry!"

Clink--clink--clink sounded the new shells as Mukoki and Wabigoon thrustthem into their magazines. Five seconds more and they were sending aterrific fusillade of shots into the edge of the cedars--ten in all--andby the time he had reloaded his own gun Rod could see nothing to shootat. 

"That will hold them for a while, " spoke Wabi. "Most of them came in toobig a hurry, and without their snow-shoes, Muky. We'll beat them to thechasm--easy!" He put an arm around the shoulders of the old Indian, whowas still lying upon his face in the snow. "Let me see, Muky--let mesee--"

"Chasm first, " replied Mukoki. "She no bad. No hit bone. Nobleed--much. "

From behind Rod could see that Mukoki's coat was showing a growingblotch of red. 

"Are you sure--you can reach the chasm?"

"Yes. "

In proof of his assertion the wounded Indian rose to his feet andapproached the pack of furs. Wabi was ahead of him, and placed it uponhis own shoulders. 

"You and Rod lead the way, " he said. "You two know where to find theopening into the chasm. I've never been there. "

Mukoki started down the hill, and Rod, close behind, could hear himbreathing heavily; there was no longer fear for himself in his soul, butfor that grim faithful warrior ahead, who would die in his trackswithout a murmur and with a smile of triumph and fearlessness on hislips. 

CHAPTER XV

RODERICK HOLDS THE WOONGAS AT BAY

They traveled more slowly now and Rod found his strength returning. Whenthey reached the second ridge he took Mukoki by the arm and assisted himup, and the old Indian made no demur. This spoke more strongly of hishurt than words. There was still no sign of their enemies behind. Fromthe top of the second ridge they could look back upon a quarter of amile of the valley below, and it was here that Rod suggested that heremain on watch for a few minutes while Wabigoon went on with Mukoki. The young hunters could see that the Indian was becoming weaker at everystep, and Mukoki could no longer conceal this weakness in spite of thetremendous efforts he made to appear natural. 

"I believe it is bad, " whispered Wabi to Rod, his face strangely white. "I believe it is worse than we think. He is bleeding hard. Your idea isa good one. Watch here, and if the Woongas show up in the valley openfire on them. I'll leave you my gun, too, so they'll think we are goingto give them another fight. That will keep them back for a time. I'mgoing to stop Muky up here a little way and dress his wound. He willbleed to death if I don't. "

"And then go on, " added Rod. "Don't stop if you hear me fire, but hurryon to the chasm. I know the way and will join you. I'm as strong as Iever was now, and can catch up with you easily with Mukoki traveling asslowly as he does. "

During this brief conversation Mukoki had continued his way along theridge and Wabi hurried to overtake him. Meanwhile Rod concealed himselfbehind a rock, from which vantage-point he could see the whole of thatpart of the valley across which they had come. 

He looked at his watch and in tense anxiety counted every minute afterthat. He allowed ten minutes for the dressing of Mukoki's wound. Everysecond gained from then on would be priceless. For a quarter of an hourhe kept his eyes with ceaseless vigilance upon their back trail. Surelythe Woongas had secured their snow-shoes by this time! Was it possiblethat they had given up the pursuit--that their terrible experience inthe dip had made them afraid of further battle? Rod answered thisquestion in the negative. He was sure that the Woongas knew that Wabiwas the son of the factor of Wabinosh House. Therefore they would makeevery effort to recapture him, even though they had to follow far and adozen lives were lost before that feat was accomplished. 

A movement in the snow across the valley caught Rod's eyes. Hestraightened himself, and his breath came quickly. Two figures hadappeared in the open. Another followed close behind, and after thatthere came others, until the waiting youth had counted sixteen. Theywere all on snow-shoes, following swiftly over the trail of thefugitives. 

The young hunter looked at his watch again. Twenty-five minutes hadpassed. Mukoki and Wabigoon had secured a good start. If he could onlyhold the outlaws in the valley for a quarter of an hour more--justfifteen short minutes--they would almost have reached the entrance intothe chasm. 

Alone, with his own life and those of his comrades depending upon him, the boy was cool. There was no tremble in his hands to destroy theaccuracy of his rifle-fire, no blurring excitement or fear in his brainto trouble his judgment of distance and range. He made up his mind thathe would not fire until they had come within four hundred yards. Betweenthat distance and three hundred he was sure he could drop at least oneor two of them. 

He measured his range by a jackpine stub, and when two of the Woongashad reached and passed that stub he fired. He saw the snow thrown up sixfeet in front of the leader. He fired again, and again, and one of theshots, a little high, struck the second outlaw. The leader had dartedback to the shelter of the stub and Rod sent another bullet whizzingpast his ears. His fifth he turned into the main body of the pursuers, and then, catching up Wabi's rifle, he poured a hail of five bulletsamong them in as many seconds. 

The effect was instantaneous. The outlaws scattered in retreat and Rodsaw that a second figure was lying motionless in the snow. He began toreload his rifles and by the time he had finished the Woongas hadseparated and were running to the right and the left of him. For thelast time he looked at his watch. Wabi and Mukoki had been gonethirty-five minutes. 

The boy crept back from his rock, straightened himself, and followed intheir trail. He mentally calculated that it would be ten minutes beforethe Woongas, coming up from the sides and rear, would discover hisflight, and by that time he would have nearly a mile the start of them. He saw, without stopping, where Wabi had dressed Mukoki's wound. Therewere spots of blood and a red rag upon the snow. Half a mile farther onthe two had paused again, and this time he knew that Mukoki had stoppedto rest. From now on they had rested every quarter of a mile or so, andsoon Roderick saw them toiling slowly through the snow ahead of him. 

He ran up, panting, anxious. 

"How--" he began. 

Wabi looked at him grimly. 

"How much farther, Rod?" he asked. 

"Not more than half a mile. "

Wabi motioned for him to take Mukoki's other arm. 

"He has bled a good deal, " he said. There was a hardness in his voicethat made Rod shudder, and he caught his breath as Wabi shot him ameaning glance behind the old warrior's doubled shoulders. 

They went faster now, almost carrying their wounded comrade betweenthem. Suddenly, Wabi paused, threw his rifle to his shoulder, and fired. A few yards ahead a huge white rabbit kicked in his death struggles inthe snow. 

"If we do reach the chasm Mukoki must have something to eat, " he said. 

"We'll reach it!" gasped Rod. "We'll reach it! There's the woods. We godown there!"

They almost ran, with Mukoki's snow-shod feet dragging between them, andfive minutes later they were carrying the half-unconscious Indian downthe steep side of the mountain. At its foot Wabi turned, and his eyesflashed with vengeful hatred. 

"Now, you devils!" he shouted up defiantly. "Now!"

Mukoki aroused himself for a few moments and Rod helped him back to theshelter of the chasm wall. He found a nook between great masses of rock, almost clear of snow, and left him there while he hurried back toWabigoon. 

"You stand on guard here, Rod, " said the latter. "We must cook thatrabbit and get some life back into Mukoki. I think he has stoppedbleeding, but I am going to look again. The wound isn't fatal, but ithas weakened him. If we can get something hot into him I believe he willbe able to walk again. Did you have anything left over from your dinneron the trail to-day?"

Rod unstrapped the small pack in which the hunters carried their foodwhile on the trail, and which had been upon his shoulders since noon. 

"There is a double handful of coffee, a cupful of tea, plenty of saltand a little bread, " he said. 

"Good! Few enough supplies for three people in this kind of awilderness--but they'll save Mukoki!"

Wabi went back, while Rod, sheltered behind a rock, watched the narrowincline into the chasm. He almost hoped the Woongas would dare toattempt a descent, for he was sure that he and Wabi would have them at aterrible disadvantage and with their revolvers and three rifles couldinflict a decisive blow upon them before they reached the bottom. But hesaw no sign of their enemies. He heard no sound from above, yet he knewthat the outlaws were very near--only waiting for the protectingdarkness of night. 

He heard the crackling of Wabi's fire and the odor of coffee came tohim; and Wabi, assured that their presence was known to the Woongas, began whistling cheerily. In a few minutes he rejoined Rod behind therock. 

"They will attack us as soon as it gets good and dark, " he said coolly. "That is, if they can find us. As soon as they are no longer able to seedown into the chasm we will find some kind of a hiding-place. Mukokiwill be able to travel then. "

A memory of the cleft in the chasm wall came to Rod and he quicklydescribed it to his companion. It was an ideal hiding-place at night, and if Mukoki was strong enough they could steal up out of the chasm andsecure a long start into the south before the Woongas discovered theirflight in the morning. There was just one chance of failure. If the spywhose trail had revealed the break in the mountain to Rod was not amongthe outlaws' wounded or dead the cleft might be guarded, or the Woongasthemselves might employ it in making a descent upon them. 

"It's worth the risk anyway, " said Wabi. "The chances are even that youroutlaw ran across the fissure by accident and that his companions arenot aware of its existence. And they'll not follow our trail down thechasm to-night, I'll wager. In the cover of darkness they will stealdown among the rocks and then wait for daylight. Meanwhile we can betraveling southward and when they catch up with us we will give themanother fight if they want it. "

"We can start pretty soon?"

"Within an hour. "

For some time the two stood in silent watchfulness. Suddenly Rod asked:

"Where is Wolf?"

Wabi laughed, softly, exultantly. 

"Gone back to his people, Rod. He will be crying in the wild hunt-packto-night. Good old Wolf!" The laugh left his lips and there was atremble of regret in his voice. "The Woongas came from the back of thecabin--took me by surprise--and we had it hot and heavy for a fewminutes. We fell back where Wolf was tied and just as I knew they'd gotme sure I cut his babeesh with the knife I had in my hand. "

"Didn't he show fight?"

"For a minute. Then one of the Indians shot, at him and he hiked offinto the woods. "

"Queer they didn't wait for Mukoki and me, " mused Rod. "Why didn't theyambush us?"

"Because they didn't want you, and they were sure they'd reach theircamp before you took up the trail. I was their prize. With me in theirpower they figured on communicating with you and Mukoki and sending youback to the Post with their terms. They would have bled father to hislast cent--and then killed me. Oh, they talked pretty plainly to me whenthey thought they had me!"

There came a noise from above them and the young hunters held theirrifles in readiness. Nearer and nearer came the crashing sound, until asmall boulder shot past them into the chasm. 

"They're up there, " grinned Wabi, lowering his gun. "That was anaccident, but you'd better keep your eyes open. I'll bet the whole tribefeel like murdering the fellow who rolled over that stone!"

He crept cautiously back to Mukoki, and Rod crouched with his face tothe narrow trail leading down from the top of the mountain. Deep shadowswere beginning to lurk among the trees and he was determined that anymovement there would draw his fire. Fifteen minutes later Wabi returned, eating ravenously at a big hind quarter of broiled rabbit. 

"I've had my coffee, " he greeted. "Go back and eat and drink, and buildthe fire up high. Don't mind me when I shoot. I am going to fire just tolet the Woongas know we are on guard, and after that we'll hustle forthat break in the mountain. "

Rod found Mukoki with a chunk of rabbit in one hand and a cup of coffeein the other. The wounded Indian smiled with something like the oldlight in his eyes and a mighty load was lifted from Rod's heart. 

"You're better?" he asked. 

"Fine!" replied Mukoki. "No much hurt. Good fight some more. Wabi say, 'No, you stay. '" His face became a map of grimaces to show hisdisapproval of Wabi's command. 

Rod helped himself to the meat and coffee. He was hungry, but after hewas done there remained some of the rabbit and a biscuit and these heplaced in his pack for further use. Soon after this there came two shotsfrom the rock and before the echoes had died away down the chasm Wabiapproached through the gathering gloom. 

It was easy for the hunters to steal along the concealment of themountain wall, and even if there had been prying eyes on the oppositeridge they could not have penetrated the thickening darkness in thebottom of the gulch. For some time the flight was continued with extremecaution, no sound being made to arouse the suspicion of any outlaw whomight be patrolling the edge of the precipice. At the end of half anhour Mukoki, who was in the lead that he might set a pace according tohis strength, quickened his steps. Rod was close beside him now, hiseyes ceaselessly searching the chasm wall for signs that would tell himwhen they were nearing the rift. Suddenly Wabi halted in his tracks andgave a low hiss that stopped them. 

"It's snowing!" he whispered. 

Mukoki lifted his face. Great solitary flakes of snow fell upon it. 

"She snow hard--soon. Mebby cover snow-shoe trails!"

"And if it does--we're safe!" There was a vibrant joy in Wabi's voice. 

For a full minute Mukoki held his face to the sky. 

"Hear small wind over chasm, " he said. 

"She come from south. She snow hard--now--up there!"

They went on, stirred by new hope. Rod could feel that the flakes werecoming thicker. The three now kept close to the chasm wall in theirsearch for the rift. How changed all things were at night! Rod's heartthrobbed now with hope, now with doubt, now with actual fear. Was itpossible that he could not find it? Had they passed it among some of theblack shadows behind? He saw no rock that he recognized, no overhangingcrag, no sign to guide him. He stopped, and his voice betrayed hisuneasiness as he asked:

"How far do you think we have come?"

Mukoki had gone a few steps ahead, and before Wabi answered he calledsoftly to them from close up against the chasm wall. They hurried to himand found him standing beside the rift. 

"Here!"

Wabi handed his rifle to Rod. 

"I'm going up first, " he announced. "If the coast is clear I'll whistledown. "

For a few moments Mukoki and Rod could hear him as he crawled up thefissure. Then all was silent. A quarter of an hour passed, and a lowwhistle came to their ears. Another ten minutes and the three stoodtogether at the top of the mountain, Rod and the wounded Mukokibreathing hard from their exertions. 

For a time the three sat down in the snow and waited, watched, listened;and from Rod's heart there went up something that was almost a prayer, for it was snowing--snowing hard, and it seemed to him that the stormwas something which God had specially directed should fall in their paththat it might shield them and bring them safely home. 

And when he rose to his feet Wabi was still silent, and the threegripped hands in mute thankfulness at their deliverance. 

Still speechless, they turned instinctively for a moment back to thedark desolation beyond the chasm--the great, white wilderness in whichthey had passed so many adventurous yet happy weeks; and as they gazedinto the chaos beyond the second mountain there came to them the lonely, wailing howl of a wolf. 

"I wonder, " said Wabi softly. "I wonder--if that--is Wolf?"

And then, Indian file, they trailed into the south. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE SURPRISE AT THE POST

From the moment that the adventurers turned their backs upon the Woongacountry Mukoki was in command. With the storm in their favor everythingelse now depended upon the craft of the old pathfinder. There wasneither moon nor wind to guide them, and even Wabi felt that he was notcompetent to strike a straight trail in a strange country and a nightstorm. But Mukoki, still a savage in the ways of the wilderness, seemedpossessed of that mysterious sixth sense which is known as the sense oforientation--that almost supernatural instinct which guides the carrierpigeon as straight as a die to its home-cote hundreds of miles away. Again and again during that thrilling night's flight Wabi or Rod wouldask the Indian where Wabinosh House lay, and he would point out itsdirection to them without hesitation. And each time it seemed to thecity youth that he pointed a different way, and it proved to him howeasy it was to become hopelessly lost in the wilderness. 

Not until midnight did they pause to rest. They had traveled slowly butsteadily and Wabi figured that they had covered fifteen miles. Fivemiles behind them their trail was completely obliterated by the fallingsnow. Morning would betray to the Woongas no sign of the direction takenby the fugitives. 

"They will believe that we have struck directly westward for the Post, "said Wabi. "To-morrow night we'll be fifty miles apart. "

During this stop a small fire was built behind a fallen log and thehunters refreshed themselves with a pot of strong coffee and what littleremained of the rabbit and biscuits. The march was then resumed. 

It seemed to Rod that they had climbed an interminable number of ridgesand had picked their way through an interminable number of swampybottoms between them, and he, even more than Mukoki, was relieved whenthey struck the easier traveling of open plains. In fact, Mukoki seemedscarcely to give a thought to his wound and Roderick was almost ready todrop in his tracks by the time a halt was called an hour before dawn. The old warrior was confident that they were now well out of danger anda rousing camp-fire was built in the shelter of a thick growth ofspruce. 

"Spruce partridge in mornin', " affirmed Mukoki. "Plenty here forbreakfast. "

"How do you know?" asked Rod, whose hunger was ravenous. 

"Fine thick spruce, all in shelter of dip, " explained the Indian. "Birdswinter here. "

Wabi had unpacked the furs, and the larger of these, including six lynxand three especially fine wolf skins, he divided into three piles. 

"They'll make mighty comfortable beds if you keep close enough to thefire, " he explained. "Get a few spruce boughs, Rod, and cover them overwith one of the wolf skins. The two lynx pelts will make the warmestblankets you ever had. "

Rod quickly availed himself of this idea, and within half an hour he wassleeping soundly. Mukoki and Wabigoon, more inured to the hardships ofthe wilderness, took only brief snatches of slumber, one or bothawakening now and then to replenish the fire. As soon as it was lightenough the two Indians went quietly out into the spruce with their guns, and their shots a little later awakened Rod. When they returned theybrought three partridges with them. 

"There are dozens of them among the spruce, " said Wabi, "but just now wedo not want to shoot any oftener than is absolutely necessary. Have younoticed our last night's trail?"

Rod rubbed his eyes, thus confessing that as yet he had not been outfrom between his furs. 

"Well, if you go out there in the open for a hundred yards you won'tfind it, " finished his comrade. "The snow has covered it completely. "

Although they lacked everything but meat, this breakfast in the sprucethicket was one of the happiest of the entire trip, and when the threehunters were done each had eaten of his partridge until only the boneswere left. There was now little cause for fear, for it was still snowingand their enemies were twenty-five miles to the north of them. This factdid not deter the adventurers from securing an early start, however, andthey traveled southward through the storm until noon, when they built acamp of spruce and made preparations to rest until the following day. 

"We must be somewhere near the Kenogami trail, " Wabi remarked to Mukoki. "We may have passed it. "

"No pass it, " replied Mukoki. "She off there. " He pointed to the south. 

"You see the Kenogami trail is a sled trail leading from the little townof Nipigon, on the railroad, to Kenogami House, which is a Hudson BayPost at the upper end of Long Lake, " explained Wabi to his whitecompanion. "The factor of Kenogami is a great friend of ours and we havevisited back and forth often, but I've been over the Kenogami trail onlyonce. Mukoki has traveled it many times. "

Several rabbits were killed before dinner. No other hunting was doneduring the afternoon, most of which was passed in sleep by the exhaustedadventurers. When Rod awoke he found that it had stopped snowing and wasnearly dark. 

Mukoki's wound was beginning to trouble him again, and it was decidedthat at least a part of the next day should be passed in camp, and thatboth Rod and Wabigoon should make an effort to kill some animal thatwould furnish them with the proper kind of oil to dress it with, the fatof almost any species of animal except mink or rabbit being valuable forthis purpose. With dawn the two started out, while Mukoki, much againsthis will, was induced to remain in camp. A short distance away thehunters separated, Rod striking to the eastward and Wabi into the south. 

For an hour Roderick continued without seeing game, though there wereplenty of signs of deer and caribou about him. At last he determined tostrike for a ridge a mile to the south, from the top of which he wasmore likely to get a shot than in the thick growth of the plains. He hadnot traversed more than a half of the distance when much to his surprisehe came upon a well-beaten trail running slightly diagonally with hisown, almost due north. Two dog-teams had passed since yesterday's storm, and on either side of the sleds were the snow-shoe trails of men. Rodsaw that there were three of these, and at least a dozen dogs in the twoteams. It at once occurred to him that this was the Kenogami trail, andimpelled by nothing more than curiosity he began to follow it. 

Half a mile farther on he found where the party had stopped to cook ameal. The remains of their camp-fire lay beside a huge log, which waspartly burned away, and about it were scattered bones and bits of bread. But what most attracted Rod's attention were other tracks which joinedthose of the three people on snow-shoes. He was sure that these trackshad been made by women, for the footprints made by one of them wereunusually small. Close to the log he found a single impression in thesnow that caused his heart to give a sudden unexpected thump within him. In this spot the snow had been packed by one of the snow-shoes, and inthis comparatively hard surface the footprint was clearly defined. Ithad been made by a moccasin. Rod knew that. And the moccasin wore aslight heel! He remembered, now, that thrilling day in the forest nearWabinosh House when he had stopped to look at Minnetaki's footprints inthe soft earth through which she had been driven by her Woongaabductors, and he remembered, too, that she was the only person at thePost who wore heels on her moccasins. It was a queer coincidence! CouldMinnetaki have been here? Had she made that footprint in the snow?Impossible, declared the young hunter's better sense. And yet his bloodran a little faster as he touched the delicate impression with his barefingers. It reminded him of Minnetaki, anyway; her foot would have madejust such a trail, and he wondered if the girl who had stepped there wasas pretty as she. 

He followed now a little faster than before, and ten minutes later hecame to where a dozen snow-shoe trails had come in from the north andhad joined the three. After meeting, the two parties had evidentlyjoined forces and had departed over the trail made by those who hadappeared from the direction of the Post. 

"Friends from Kenogami House came down to meet them, " mused Rod, and ashe turned back in the direction of the camp he formed a picture of thatmeeting in the heart of the wilderness, of the glad embraces of husbandand wife, and the joy of the pretty girl with the tiny feet as shekissed her father, and perhaps her big brother; for no girl couldpossess feet just like Minnetaki's and not be pretty!

He found that Wabi had preceded him when he returned. The young Indianhad shot a small doe, and that noon witnessed a feast in camp. For hislack of luck Rod had his story to tell of the people on the trail. Thepassing of this party formed the chief topic of conversation during therest of the day, for after weeks of isolation in the wilderness eventhis momentary nearness of living civilized men and women was a greatevent to them. But there was one fact which Rod dwelt but slightly upon. He did not emphasize the similarity of the pretty footprint and thatmade by Minnetaki's moccasin, for he knew that a betrayal of hisknowledge and admiration of the Indian maiden's feet would furnish Wabiwith fun-making ammunition for a week. He did say, however, that thefootprint in the snow struck him as being just about the size thatMinnetaki would make. 

All that day and night the hunters remained in camp, sleeping, eatingand taking care of Mukoki's wound, but the next morning saw them readyfor their homeward journey with the coming of dawn. They struck duewestward now, satisfied that they were well beyond the range of theoutlaw Woongas. 

As the boys talked over their adventure on the long journey back towardthe Post, Wabi thought with regret of the moose head which he had leftburied in the "Indian ice-box, " and even wished, for a moment, to gohome by the northern trail, despite the danger from the hostile Woongas, in order to recover the valuable antlers. But Mukoki shook his head. 

"Woonga make good fight. What for go again into wolf trap?"

And so they reluctantly gave up the notion of carrying the big head ofthe bull moose back to the Post. 

A little before noon of the second day they saw Lake Nipigon from thetop of a hill. Columbus when he first stepped upon the shore of hisnewly discovered land was not a whit happier than Roderick Drew whenthat joyous youth, running out upon the snow-covered ice, attempted toturn a somersault with his snow-shoes on!

Just over there, thought Rod--just over there--a hundred miles or so, isMinnetaki and the Post! Happy visions filled his mind all that afternoonas they traveled across the foot of the lake. Three weeks more and hewould see his mother--and home. And Wabi was going with him! He seemedtireless; his spirits were never exhausted; he laughed, whistled, evenattempted to sing. He wondered if Minnetaki would be very glad to seehim. He knew that she would be glad--but how glad?

Two days more were spent in circling the lower end of the lake. Thentheir trail turned northward, and on the second evening after this, asthe cold red sun was sinking in all that heatless glory of the greatNorth's day-end, they came out upon a forest-clad ridge and looked downupon the House of Wabinosh. 

And as they looked--and as the burning disk of the sun, falling down anddown behind forest, mountain and plain, bade its last adieu to the landof the wild, there came to them, strangely clear and beautiful, thenotes of a bugle. 

And Wabi, listening, grew rigid with wonder. As the last notes died awaythe cheers that had been close to his lips gave way to the question, "What does that mean?"

"A bugle!" said Rod. 

As he spoke there came to their ears the heavy, reverberating boom of abig gun. 

"If I'm not mistaken, " he added, "that is a sunset salute. I didn't knowyou had--soldiers--at the Post!"

"We haven't, " replied the Indian youth. "By George, what do you supposeit means?"

He hurried down the ridge, the others close behind him. Fifteen minuteslater they trailed out into the open near the Post. A strange change hadoccurred since Rod and his companions had last seen Wabinosh House. Inthe open half a dozen rude log shelters had been erected, and aboutthese were scores of soldiers in the uniform of his Majesty, the King ofEngland. Shouts of greeting died on the hunters' lips. They hastened tothe dwelling of the factor, and while Wabi rushed in to meet his motherand father Rod cut across to the Company's store. He had often foundMinnetaki there. But his present hope was shattered, and after lookingin he turned back to the house. By the time he had reached the steps asecond time the princess mother, with Wabi close behind her, came out towelcome him. 

Wabi's face was flushed with excitement. His eyes sparkled. 

"Rod, what do you think!" he exclaimed, after his mother had gone backto see to the preparation of their supper. "The government has declaredwar on the Woongas and has sent up a company of regulars to wipe 'em out!They have been murdering and robbing as never before during the last twomonths. The regulars start after them to-morrow!"

He was breathing hard and excitedly. 

"Can't you stay--and join in the campaign?" he pleaded. 

"I can't, " replied Rod. "I can't, Wabi; I've got to go home. You knowthat. And you're going with me. The regulars can get along without you. Go back to Detroit with me--and get your mother to let Minnetaki go withus. "

"Not now, Rod, " said the Indian youth, taking his friend's hand. "Iwon't be able to go--now. Nor Minnetaki either. They have been havingsuch desperate times here that father has sent her away. He wantedmother to go, but she wouldn't. "

"Sent Minnetaki away?" gasped Rod. 

"Yes. She started for Kenogami House four days ago in company with anIndian woman and three guides. That was undoubtedly their trail youfound. "

"And the footprint--"

"Was hers, " laughed Wabi, putting an arm affectionately around hischum's shoulders. "Won't you stay, Rod?"

"It is impossible. "

He went to his old room, and until suppertime sat alone in silentdejection. Two great disappointments had fallen upon him. Wabi could notgo home with him--and he had missed Minnetaki. The young girl had left anote in her mother's care for him, and he read it again and again. Shehad written it believing that she would return to Wabinosh House beforethe hunters, but at the end she had added a paragraph in which she saidthat if she did not do this Rod must make the Post a second visit verysoon, and bring his mother with him. 

At supper the princess mother several times pressed Minnetaki'sinvitation upon the young hunter. She read to him parts of certainletters which she had received from Mrs. Drew during the winter, and Rodwas overjoyed to find that his mother was not only in good health, butthat she had given her promise to visit Wabinosh House the followingsummer. Wabi broke all table etiquette by giving vent to a warlike whoopof joy at this announcement, and once more Rod's spirits rose high abovehis temporary disappointments. 

That night the furs were appraised and purchased by the factor for hisCompany, and Rod's share, including his third of the gold, was nearlyseven hundred dollars. The next morning the bi-monthly sled party, wasleaving for civilization, and he prepared to go with it, after writing along letter to Minnetaki, which was to be carried to her by the faithfulMukoki. Most of that night Wabi and his friend sat up and talked, andmade plans. It was believed that the campaign against the Woongas wouldbe a short and decisive one. By spring all trouble would be over. 

"And you'll come back as soon as you can?" pleaded Wabi for thehundredth time. "You'll come back by the time the ice breaks up?"

"If I am alive!" pledged the city youth. 

"And you'll bring your mother?"

"She has promised. "

"And then--for the gold!"

"For the gold!"

Wabi held out his hand and the two gripped heartily. 

"And Minnetaki will be here then--I swear it!" said the Indian youth, laughing. 

Rod blushed. 

And that night alone he slipped quietly out into the still, white night;and he looked, longingly, far into the southeast where he had found thefootprint in the snow; and he turned to the north, and the east, and thewest, and lastly to the south, and his eyes seemed to travel through thedistance of a thousand miles to where a home and a mother lay sleepingin a great city. And as he turned back to the House of Wabinosh, whereall the lights were out, he spoke softly to himself:

"It's home--to-morrow!"

And then he added:

"But you bet I'll be back by the time the ice breaks up!"

THE END