When he regained consciousness his eyes were first turned to the door, which was still open, and through which he caught the white gleam of the snow. A hand was pressed gently upon his face.
"Rod—"
Minnetaki spoke in a whisper, a whisper that trembled with gladness, with relief. Rod smiled. Weakly he lifted a hand and touched the sweet, white face above him.
"I'm glad to see you—Minnetaki—" he breathed.
The girl quickly put a cup of cold water to his lips.
"You mustn't try to move," she said softly, her eyes glowing. "It isn't a very bad wound, and I've dressed it nicely. But you mustn't move—or talk—or it may begin bleeding again."
"But I'm so glad to see you, Minnetaki," persisted the youth. "You don't know how disappointed I was to find you gone when we returned to Wabinosh House from our hunting trip. Wabi and Mukoki—"
"Sh-h-h-h!"
Minnetaki placed her hand upon his lips.
"You must keep quiet, Roderick. Don't you know how curious I am to know how you are here? But you must not tell me—now. Let me do the talking. Will you? Please!"
Involuntarily the young girl's eyes left his face, and Rod, weakly following her gaze, saw that a blanket had been spread over a huddled heap in the middle of the floor. He shuddered, and feeling the sudden tremor in his hand Minnetaki turned to him quickly, her cheeks whiter than before, but her eyes shining like stars.
"It is Woonga," she whispered. In her voice was a thrilling tremble. "It is Woonga, and he is dead!"
Rod understood the look in her face now. Woonga, the Nemesis of her people, the outlaw chief who had sworn vengeance on the house of Wabinosh, and whose murderous hand had hovered for years like a threatening cloud over the heads of the factor and his wife and children, was dead! And he, Roderick Drew, who once before had saved Minnetaki's life, had killed him. In his weakness and pain he smiled, and said,
"I am glad, Minne—"
He did not finish. There had come a stealthy, crumbling step to the door, and in another moment Mukoki and Wabigoon were in the little cabin.
CHAPTER VI
THE SHADOW OF DEATH
Rod was hardly conscious of what passed during the next half-hour. The excitement of the sudden entrance of Minnetaki's brother and the old Indian set his head reeling, and he sank back upon the blankets, from which he had partly raised himself, fainting and weak. The last that he heard was Minnetaki's warning voice, and then he felt something cool upon his face. It seemed a long time before he heard sound again, and when he stirred himself, struggling toward consciousness, there came a whisper in his ear urging him to be quiet. It was Minnetaki, and he obeyed.
After a little he heard low voices, and then movement, and opened his eyes. He could feel Minnetaki's gentle hand stroking his face and hair, as if weaning him to sleep, and at his feet he saw Mukoki, the old warrior, crouching like a lynx, his beady eyes glaring at him. The glare fascinated Roderick. He had seen it in Mukoki's eyes before, when the Indian believed that injury had come to those he loved; and when the white boy saw it now, bent upon himself, he knew that he, too, had become more than a friend to this savage pathfinder of the wilderness. Minnetaki's caressing hand and the fearful anxiety in the crouching posture of the old hunter thrilled him, and two words fell from his lips before they knew that he had come back into life.
"Hello, Muky!"
Instantly the old Indian was at his side, kneeling there silent, trembling, his face twitching with joy, his eyes gleaming, and where he had crouched a moment before there came Wabigoon, smiling down upon Rod in his own bursting happiness, which was only held in check by Minnetaki's hand and the almost inaudible "Sh-h-h-h!" that fell from her lips.
"You right—me wrong," the white boy heard Mukoki saying. "You save Minnetaki—kill Woonga. Very much dam'—dam'—dam'—brave man!"
Mukoki was pressed back by Wabi's sister before he could say more, and a cool drink of spring water was placed to Roderick's lips. He felt feverish and the water gave him new strength. He turned his face to Minnetaki, and she smiled at him. Then he saw that the dead outlaw had been removed from the cabin. When he made an effort to raise himself a little the girl helped him, and rolled a blanket under his shoulders.
"You're not so badly hurt as I thought you were, Rod," she said. "That is, you're not dangerously hurt. Mukoki has dressed your wound, and you will be better soon." Wabigoon, coming nearer, put both arms around his lovely little sister and kissed her again and again.
"Rod, you're a hero!" he cried softly, gripping his comrade's hand. "God bless you!"
Rod blushed, and to restrain further effusions closed his eyes. During the next quarter of an hour Minnetaki prepared some coffee and meat, while both Mukoki and Wabi cared for the sledge-dogs outside.
"To-morrow, if you are stronger, we're going to take you on to Kenegami House," the girl said to him. "Then you can tell me all about your adventures during the winter. Wabi has told me just enough about your battles with the Indians and about the old skeletons and the lost gold-mine to set me wild. Oh, I wish you would take me with you on your hunt for gold!"
"By George, I wish we could!" exclaimed Rod with enthusiasm. "Coax Wabi, Minnetaki—coax him hard."
"You'll coax him, too, won't you, Rod? But then, I don't suppose it will do any good. And father and mother wouldn't listen to it for a moment. All of them are so afraid that some harm is going to befall me. That's why they sent me from Wabinosh House just before you boys returned. You see the Indians were more hostile than ever, and they thought I would be safer at Kenegami House. How I do wish they'd let me go! I'd love to hunt bears, and wolves, and moose, and help you find the gold. Please coax him hard, Roderick!"
And that very day, when he was strong enough to sit up, Rod did plead with his half-Indian comrade that Minnetaki might be allowed to accompany them. But Wabi stanchly refused even to consider the proposition, and Mukoki, when he learned of the girl's desire, grinned and chuckled in his astonishment for the next half-hour.
"Minnetaki ver' brave—ver' brave girl," he confided to Rod, "but she die up there, I guess so! You want Minnetaki die?"
Rod assured him that he did not, and the subject was dropped.
That day and night in the old cabin was one of the pleasantest within Rod's memory, despite the youth's wound. A cheerful fire of dry pine and poplar burned in the stone fireplace, and when Minnetaki announced that the evening meal was ready Rod was for the first time allowed to leave his bunk. For the greater part of the day Wabi and Mukoki had searched in the chasm and along the mountains for signs of the outlaw Indian's band, but their search had revealed nothing to arouse their fears. As mysterious and unaccountable as the fact seemed, there was no doubt that the old cabin was a retreat known only to Woonga himself, and as the four sat in the warm glow of the fire, eating and drinking, the whole adventure was gone over again and again until there seemed no part of it left in doubt. Minnetaki described her capture and explained the slowness of their flight after the massacre. Woonga was ill and had refused to move far from the scene of the slaughter until he had fully regained his strength.
"But why did Woonga kill the Indian back on the trail?" asked Rod.
Minnetaki shuddered as she thought of the terrible scene that had been enacted before her eyes.
"I heard them quarreling," she said, "but I couldn't understand. I know that it was about me. We had gone but a short distance after the sledges separated when Woonga, who was ahead of me, turned about and shot the other in the breast. It was terrible! And then he drove on as coolly as though nothing had happened."
"I'm curious to know how he used the bear's feet," exclaimed Rod.
"They were huge pads into which he slipped his feet, moccasins and all," explained Minnetaki. "He told me that the dogs would go on to Kenegami House, and that if pursuers followed us they would follow the sledge trail and never give a thought to the bear tracks."
Mukoki chuckled deep down in his throat.
"He no fool Rod," he said. "Nobody fool Rod!"
"Especially when he's on Minnetaki's trail," laughed Wabi happily.
"Wasn't it Rod who discovered the secret of the lost gold, after you had given up all hope?" retorted Minnetaki.
The lost gold!
How those three words, falling clearly from the girl's lips, thrilled the hearts of Mukoki and the young adventurers. Night had closed in, and only the fitful flashes of the fire illumined the interior of the old cabin. The four had finished eating, and as they drew themselves close about the fire there fell a strange silence among them. The lost gold. Rod gazed across at Wabigoon, whose bronzed face was half hid in the dancing shadows, and then at Mukoki, whose wrinkled visage shone like dull copper as he stared like some watchful animal into the flame glow. But it was Minnetaki who sent the blood in a swift rush of joy and pride through his veins. He caught her eyes upon him, shining like stars from out of the gloom, and he knew that she was looking at him in that way because he was her hero.
For many minutes no one broke the stillness. The fire burned down, and with its slow dying away the gloom in the corners of the old cabin thickened, and the faces became more and more like ghostly shadows, until they reminded Rod of his first vision of the ancient skeletons in that other old cabin many miles away. Then came Wabigoon's voice, as he stirred the coals and added fresh fuel.
"Yes, it was Rod. This is the map he found, Minnetaki."
He kneeled close beside his sister and drew forth his copy of the precious secret which the skeletons had guarded. With a little cry of excitement the girl took the map in her hands, and step by step, adventure by adventure, was gone over the thrilling story of the Wolf Hunters, until the late hours of night had changed into the first of morning. Twice did Minnetaki insist on having repeated to her the story of Rod's wild adventure in the mysterious chasm, and when he came to the terrors of that black night and its strange sounds Rod felt a timid little hand come close to him, and as Wabigoon continued the narration, and told of the map in the skeleton hand, and of the tale of murder and tragedy it revealed, Minnetaki's breath came in quick, tense eagerness.
"And you are going back in the spring?" she asked.
"In the spring," replied Rod.
Again Wabigoon urged Rod, as he had done at the Post, to send down to civilization for his mother instead of going for her himself. Time would be saved, he argued. They could set out on their search for the gold within a few weeks. But Rod was firm.
"It would not be fair to mother," he declared. "I must go home first, even if I have to arrange for a special sledge at Kenegami House to take me down to civilization."
But even while he was stoutly declaring what it was his intention to do, fate was stealthily at work weaving another of her webs of destiny for Roderick Drew, and his friends' anxious eyes saw the first signs of it when they bade him good night. For fever had laid its hand on the white youth, the fever that foreshadows death unless a surgeon is near, the fever of a wound going bad. Even Mukoki, graduated by Nature, taught by half a century's battle with life in this great desolation of the North, knew that his own powers were now of no avail.
So Roderick was bundled in blankets, and the race for life to Kenegami House was begun. It was a race of which Rod could only guess the import, for he did not know that Death was running a fierce pursuit behind. Many days and nights of delirium followed. One morning he seemed to awaken from a terrible dream, in which he was constantly burning and roasting, and when he opened his eyes he knew for the first time that it was Minnetaki who sat close beside him, and that it was her hand that was gently stroking his forehead. From that day on he gained strength rapidly, but it was a month before he could sit up, and another two weeks before he could stand. And so it happened that it was full two months after he had made his assertion in the old cabin before Rod was in good health again.
One day Minnetaki had a tremendous surprise in store for him. Rod had never seen her look quite so pretty, or quite so timid, as she did on this particular morning.
"Will you forgive me for—for—keeping something from you, Rod?" she asked. She did not wait for the boy's reply, but went on. "When you were so sick, and we thought you might die, I wrote to your mother and we sent the letter down by a special sledge. And—and—oh, Rod, I just can't keep it in any longer, no matter if you do scold me! Your mother has come—and she is at Wabinosh House now!"
For a moment Rod stood like one struck dumb. Then he found his voice in a series of war-whoops which quickly brought Wabi in, only to see his friend dancing around Minnetaki like one gone crazy.
"Forgive you!" he shouted again and again. "Minnetaki, you're a brick—you certainly are a brick!"
As soon as Wabi was made acquainted with the cause of Roderick's excitement he also joined in the other's wild rejoicing, and their antics startled half the house of Kenegami. Mukoki shared their joy, and Wabi hugged and kissed his sister until her pretty face was like a wild rose.
"Hurrah!" shouted Wabi for the twentieth time. "That means we start on our hunt for the lost gold-mine within a fortnight!"
"It means—" began Roderick.
"It means—" interrupted Minnetaki, "it means that you're all happy but me—and I'm glad for Rod's sake, and I want to know his mother. But you're all going—and I'm to be left behind!"
There was no laughter in her voice, and Rod and Wabigoon became suddenly quiet as she turned away.
"I'm sorry," said Wabi. "But—we can't help it."
Mukoki broke the tension.
"How bright the sun shine!" he exclaimed. "Snow an' ice go. Spring—heem here!"
CHAPTER VII
ON THE TRAIL OF GOLD
And each day thereafter the sun rose earlier, and the day was longer, and the air was warmer; and with the warmth there now came the sweet scents of the budding earth and the myriad sounds of the deep, unseen life of the forests, awakening from its long slumber in its bed of snow. The moose-birds chirped their mating songs and flirted from morning till night in bough and air, and the jays and ravens fluffed themselves in the sun, and the snowbirds, little black and white beauties that were wont to whisk about like so many flashing gems, became fewer and fewer, until they were gone altogether. The poplar buds swelled more and more in their joy, until they split like over-fat peas, and the partridges feasted upon them.
And Mother Bear came out of her winter den, accompanied by her little ones born two months before, and taught them how to pull down the slender saplings for these same buds; and the moose came down from the blizzardy tops of the great ridges, which are called mountains in the North, and where for good reasons they had passed the winter, followed by the wolves, who fed upon their weak and sick. Everywhere there were the rushing torrents of melting snows, the crackle of crumbling ice, the dying frost-cries of rock and earth and tree, and each night the cold, pale glow of the Aurora Borealis crept farther and farther toward the Pole in fading glory.
It was spring, and at Wabinosh House it brought more joy than elsewhere, for there Roderick Drew joined his mother. We have not time here to dwell on the things that happened at the old Hudson Bay Post during the ten days after their first happy reunion—of the love that sprang up between Rod's mother and Minnetaki, and the princess wife of George Newsome, the factor; of the departure of the soldiers whose task of running down Woonga ended with Rod's desperate fight in the cabin, or of the preparations of the gold hunters themselves.
On a certain evening in April, Wabi, Mukoki and Rod had assembled in the latter's room. The next morning they were to start on their long and thrilling adventure into the far North, and on this last night they went carefully over their equipment and plans to see that nothing had been forgotten. That night Rod slept little. For the second time in his life the fever of adventure was running wild in his blood. After the others had gone he studied the precious old map until his eyes grew dim; in the half slumber that came to him afterward his brain worked ceaselessly, and he saw visions of the romantic old cabin again, and the rotting buckskin bag filled with nuggets of gold on the table.
He was up before the stars began fading in the dawn, and in the big dining-room of the Post, in which had gathered the factors and their families for two hundred years, the boys ate their last breakfast with those whom they were about to leave for many weeks, perhaps months. The factor himself was boisterously cheerful in his efforts to keep up the good cheer of Mrs. Drew and the princess mother, and even Minnetaki forced herself to smile and laugh, though her eyes were red, and all knew that she had been crying. Rod was glad when the meal was over and they went out into the chill air of the morning, and down to the edge of the lake, where their big birch-bark canoe was loaded and waiting for their departure, and he was still more relieved when they had bade a last good-by to the two mothers. But Minnetaki came down to the canoe with them, and when Wabi kissed her she burst into tears, and Rod felt a queer thickening in his throat as he took her firm little hand and held it for a moment between both his own.
"Good-by, Minnetaki," he whispered.
He turned and took his position in the middle of the canoe, and with a last shout Wabi shoved off and the canoe sped out into the gloom.
For a long time there was silence, except for the rhythmic dip of the three paddles. Once Minnetaki's voice came to them faintly, and they answered it with a shout. But that was all. After a time Rod said,
"By George, this saying good-by is the toughest part of the whole business!"
His words cleared away the feeling of oppression that seemed to have fallen on them.
"It's always hard for me to leave Minnetaki," replied Wabigoon. "Some day I'm going to take her on a trip with me."
"She'd be a bully fellow!" cried Rod with enthusiasm.
From the stern of the canoe came a delighted chuckle from Mukoki.
"She brave—she shoot, she hunt, she be dam' fine!" he added, and both Rod and Wabi burst out laughing. The young Indian looked at his compass by the light of a match.
"We'll strike straight across Lake Nipigon instead of following the shore. What do you say, Muky?" he called back.
The old pathfinder was silent. In surprise Wabi ceased paddling, and repeated his question.
"Don't you think it is safe?"
Mukoki wet his hand over the side and held it above his head.
"Wind in south," he said. "Maybe no get stronger, but—"
"If she did," added Rod dubiously, noting how heavily laden the canoe was, "we'd be in a fix, as sure as you live!"
"It will take us all of to-day and half of to-morrow to follow the shore," urged Wabi, "while by cutting straight across the lake we can make the other side early this afternoon. Let's risk it!"
Mukoki grunted something that was a little less than approval, and Rod felt a peculiar sensation shoot through him as the frail birch headed out into the big lake. Their steady strokes sent the canoe through the water at fully four miles an hour, and by the time broad day had come the forest-clad shore at Wabinosh House was only a hazy outline in the distance. The white youth's unspoken fears were dispelled when the sun rose, warm and glorious, over the shimmering lake, driving the chill from the air, and seeming to bring with it the sweet scents of the forests far away. Joyfully he labored at his paddle, the mere exhilaration of the morning filling his arms with the strength of a young giant. Wabi whistled and sang wild snatches of Indian song by turns, Rod joined him with Yankee Doodle and The Star Spangled Banner, and even the silent Mukoki gave a whoop now and then to show that he was as happy as they.
One thought filled the minds of all. They were fairly started on that most thrilling of all trails, the trail of gold. In their possession was the secret of a great fortune. Romance, adventure, discovery, awaited them. The big, silent North, mysterious in its age-old desolation, where even the winds seemed to whisper of strange things that had happened countless years before, was just ahead of them. They were about to bury themselves in its secrets, to wrest from it the yellow treasure it guarded, and their blood tingled and leaped excitedly at the thought. What would be revealed to them? What might they not discover? What strange adventures were they destined to encounter in that Unknown World, peopled only by the things of the wild, that stretched trackless and unexplored before them? A hundred thoughts like these fired the brains of the three adventurers, and made their work a play, and every breath they drew one of joy.
The lake was alive with ducks. Huge flocks of big black ducks, mallards, blue bills and whistlers rose about them, and now and then, when an unusually large flock was seen floating upon the water ahead of them, one of the three would take a pot-shot with his rifle. Rod and Mukoki had each killed two, and Wabi three, when the old warrior stopped the fun.
"No waste too much shooting on ducks," he advised. "Need shells—big game."
Several times during the morning the three rested from their exertions, and at noon they ceased paddling for more than an hour while they ate the generous dinner that had been put up for them at Wabinosh House. The farther side of the lake was now plainly visible, and when the journey was resumed all eyes eagerly sought for signs of the mouth of the Ombabika, where their stirring adventures of the winter before had begun. For some time Wabi's gaze had been fixed upon a long, white rim along the shore, to which he now called his companions' attention.
"It seems to be moving," he said, turning to Mukoki. "Is it possible—" He paused doubtfully.
"What?" questioned Rod.
"That it's swans!" he completed.
"Swans!" cried the young hunter. "Great Scott, do you mean to say there could be enough swans—"
"They sometimes cover the lake in thousands," said Wabi. "I have seen them whitening the water as far as one could see."
"More swan as you count in twent' t'ous'nd year!" affirmed Mukoki. After a few moments he added, "Them no swan. Ice!"
There was an unpleasant ring in his voice as he spoke the last word, and though Rod did not fully understand what significance the discovery held for them he could not but observe that it occasioned both of his comrades considerable anxiety. The cause was not long in doubt. Another half hour of brisk paddling brought them to the edge of a frozen field of ice that extended for a quarter of a mile from the shore. In both directions it stretched beyond their vision. Wabi's face was filled with dismay. Mukoki sat with his paddle across his knees, uttering not a sound.
"What's the matter?" asked Rod. "Can't we make it?"
"Make it!" exclaimed Wabigoon. "Yes—perhaps to-morrow, or the next day!"
"Do you mean to say we can't get over that ice?"
"That's just exactly the predicament we are in. The edge of that ice is rotten."
The canoe had drifted alongside the ice, and Rod began pounding it with his paddle. For a distance of two feet it broke off in chunks, then became more firm.
"I believe that if we cut our way in for a canoe length or so it would hold us," he declared.
Wabi reached for an ax.
"We'll try it!"
Mukoki shook his head.
But for a second time that day Wabigoon persisted in acting against the old pathfinder's judgment, something that Rod had never known him to be guilty of before. Foot by foot he broke the ice ahead of the canoe, until the frail craft had thrust its length into the rotten field. Then, steadying himself on the bow, he stepped out cautiously upon the ice.
"There!" he cried triumphantly. "You next, Rod! Steady!"
In a moment Rod had joined him. What happened after that seemed to pass like a terrible nightmare. First there came a light cracking in the ice under their feet, but it was over in an instant. Wabi was laughing at him for the fear that had come into his face, and calling his name, when with a thunderous crash the whole mass gave way under them, and they plunged down into the black depths of the lake. The last that Rod saw was his friend's horror-stricken face sinking in the crumbling ice; he heard a sharp, terrible cry from Mukoki, and then he knew that the cold waters had engulfed him, and that he was battling for his life under the surface.
Fiercely he struck out with arms and legs in an effort to rise, and in that moment of terror he thought of the great sheet of ice. What if he should come up under it? In which direction should he strike out? He opened his eyes but all was a black chaos about him. The seconds seemed like ages. There came a splitting, rending sensation in his head, an almost overpowering desire to open his mouth, to gasp, gasp for air where there was nothing but death! Then his head struck something. It was the ice! He had come up under the ice, and there was but one end to that!
He began to sink again, slowly, as if an invisible hand were pulling him down, and in his despair he made a last frantic effort, striking out blindly, knowing that in another second he must open his mouth. Even under the water he still had consciousness enough left to know that he tried to cry out, and he felt the first gurgling rush of water into his lungs. But he did not see the long arm that reached down where the bubbles were coming up, he did not feel the grip that dragged him out upon the ice. His first sense of life was that something very heavy was upon his stomach, and that he was being rubbed, and pummeled, and rolled about as if he had become the plaything of a great bear. Then he saw Mukoki, and then Wabigoon.
"You go build fire," he heard Mukoki say, and he could hear Wabi running swiftly shoreward. For he knew that they were still upon the ice. The canoe was drawn safely up a dozen feet away, and the old Indian was dragging blankets from it. When Mukoki turned he found Rod resting upon his elbow, looking at him.
"That—w'at you call heem—close shave!" he grinned, placing a supporting arm under Rod's shoulder.
With Mukoki's assistance the youth rose to his feet, and a thick blanket was wrapped about him. Slowly they made their way shoreward, and soon Wabi came running out to meet them, dripping wet.
"Rod, when we get thawed out, I want you to kick me," he pleaded. "I want you to kick me good and hard, and then I'll take great pleasure in kicking you. And ever after this, when we do a thing that Mukoki tells us not to do, we'll kick some more!"
"Who pulled us out?" asked Rod.
"Mukoki, of course. Will you kick me?"
"Shake!"
And the two dripping, half-frozen young adventurers shook hands, while Mukoki chuckled and grunted and gurgled until he set the others bursting into laughter.
CHAPTER VIII
THE YELLOW BULLET
Before a rousing fire of logs Rod and Wabigoon began to see the cheerful side of life again, and as soon as Mukoki had built them a balsam shelter they stripped off their clothes and wrapped themselves in blankets, while the old Indian dried their outfits. It was two hours before they were dressed. No sooner were they out than Wabi went into the bush and returned a few minutes later brandishing a good-sized birch in his hand. There was no sign of humor in his face as he eyed Rod.
"Do you see that log?" he said, pointing to the big trunk of a fallen tree near the fire "That will just fit your stomach, Rod. It will be better than kicking. Double yourself over that, face down, pantaloons up. I'm going to lick you first because I want you to know just how much to give me. I want it twice as hard, for I was more to blame than you."
In some astonishment Rod doubled himself over the log.
"Great Scott!" he ejaculated, peering up in dismay. "Not too hard, Wabi!"
Swish! fell the birch, and a yell of pain burst from the white youth's lips.
Swish!—Swish!—Swish!
"Ouch! Great Caesar—Let up!"
"Don't move!" shouted Wabi. "Take it like a man—you deserve it!"
Again and again the birch fell. Rod groaned as he rose to his feet after Wabi had stopped. "Oh, please—please give me that whip!"
"Not too hard, you know," warned Wabi, as he fitted himself over the log.
"You chose your own poison," reminded Rod, rolling up his sleeve. "Just twice as hard, no more!"
And the birch began to fall.
When it was over Rod's arm ached, and Wabi, despite his Indian stoicism, let out a long howl at the last blow.
During the entire scene of chastisement Mukoki stood like one struck dumb.
"We'll never be bad any more, Muky," promised Wabigoon, rubbing himself gently. "That is, if we are, we'll whip ourselves again, eh, Rod?"
"Not so long as I can run!" assured Rod with emphasis. "I'm willing to lend a helping hand at any time you think you deserve another, but beyond that please count me out!"
For an hour after the self-punishment of the young gold hunters the three gathered fuel for the night and balsam boughs for their beds. It was dark by the time they sat down to their supper, which they ate in the light of a huge fire of dry poplar.
"This is better than paddling all night, even if we did have a close shave," said Rod, after they had finished and settled themselves comfortably.
Wabi gave a grimace and shrugged his shoulders.
"Do you know how close your call was?" he asked. "It was so close that just by one chance in ten thousand you were saved. I had pulled myself upon the ice by catching hold of the bow of the canoe and when Muky saw that I was safe he watched for you. But you didn't show up. We had given you up for dead when a few bubbles came to the surface, and quicker than a wink Mukoki thrust down his arm. He got you by the hair as you were sinking for the last time. Think of that, Rod, and dream of it to-night. It'll do you good."
"Ugh!" shuddered the white youth. "Let's talk of something more cheerful. What a glorious fire that poplar makes!"
"Mak' light more as twent' t'ous'nd candles!" agreed Mukoki. "Heem bright!"
"Once upon a time, many ages ago, there was a great chief in this country," began Wabigoon, "and he had seven beautiful daughters. So beautiful were they that the Great Spirit himself fell in love with them, and for the first time in countless moons he appeared upon earth, and told the chief that if he would give him his seven daughters he, in turn, would grant the father seven great desires. And the chief, surrendering his daughters, asked that he might be given a day without night, and a night without day, and his wish was granted; and his third and fourth and fifth desires were that the land might always be filled with fish and game, the forests remain for ever green, and fire be given to his people. His sixth desire was that a fuel be given to him which would burn even in water, and the Great Spirit gave him birch; and his seventh desire was that he might possess another fuel, which would throw off no smoke, and might bring comfort and joy to his wigwams—and the poplar sprang up in the forests. And because of that chief, and his seven beautiful daughters, all of these things are true even to this day. Isn't it so, Mukoki?"
The old warrior nodded.
"And what became of the Great Spirit and the seven beautiful daughters?" questioned Rod.
Mukoki rose and left the fire.
"He believes in that as he believes in the sun and the moon," spoke Wabi softly. "But he knows that you do not, and that all white people laugh at it. He could tell you many wonderful stories of the creation of these forests and mountains and the things in them if he would. But he knows that you would not believe, and would laugh at him afterward."
In an instant Rod was upon his feet.
"Mukoki!" he called. "Mukoki!"
The old Indian turned and came back slowly. The white youth met him half-way, his face flushed, his eyes shining.
"Mukoki," he said gently, gripping the warrior's hand, "Mukoki—I love your Great Spirit! I love the one who made these glorious forests, and that glorious moon up there, and the mountains and lakes and rivers! I want to know more about him. You must tell me, so that I will know when he talks about me, in the winds, in the stars, in the forests! Will you?"
Mukoki was looking at him, his thin lips parted, his grim visage relaxed, as if he were weighing the truthfulness of the white youth's words.
"And I will tell you about our Great Spirit, the white man's Great Spirit," urged Rod. "For we have a Great Spirit, too, Mukoki, and He did for the white man's world what yours did for you. He created the earth, the sky and the sea and all the things in them in six days, and on the seventh He rested. And that seventh day we call Sunday, Mukoki. And He made our forests for us, as your Great Spirit made them for you, only instead of giving them for the love of seven beautiful women He gave them for the love of man. I'll tell you wonderful things about Him, Mukoki, if you will tell me about yours. Is it a bargain?"
"Mebby—yes," replied the old pathfinder slowly. His face had softened, and for the second time Rod knew that he had touched the heartstrings of his red comrade. They returned to the fire, and Wabi made room for them upon the log beside him. In his hand he held a copy of the old birch-bark map.
"I've been thinking about this all day," he said, spreading it out so that the others could see. "Somehow I haven't been able to get the idea out of my head that—"
"What?" asked Rod.
"Oh, nothing," hastily added Wabi, as if he regretted what he had said. "It's a mighty curious map, isn't it? I wonder if we'll ever know its whole story."
"I believe we know it now," declared Rod. "In the first place, we found it clutched by one of the skeletons, and we know from the knife wounds in those skeletons, and the weapons near them, that the two men fought and killed themselves. They fought for this map, for the precious secret which each wished to possess alone. Now—"
He took the map from Wabi's fingers and held it up between them and the fire.
"Isn't the rest of it clear?"
For a few moments the three looked at it in silence.
From the faded outlines of the original it had been drawn with painstaking accuracy.
With a splinter Rod pointed to the top of the map, where were written the words, "Cabin and head of chasm."
"Could anything be clearer?" he repeated. "Here is the cabin in which the men killed themselves, and where we found their skeletons, and here they have marked the chasm in which I shot the silver fox, and down which we must go to find the gold. According to this we must go until we come to the third waterfall, and there we will find another cabin—and the gold."
"It all seems very simple—by the map," agreed Wabi.
Under the crude diagram were a number of lines in writing. They were:
"We, John Ball, Henri Langlois, and Peter Plante, having discovered gold at this fall, do hereby agree to joint partnership in the same, and do pledge ourselves to forget our past differences and work in mutual good will and honesty, so help us God. Signed,
"JOHN BALL, HENRI LANGLOIS, PETER PLANTE."
Through the name of John Ball had been drawn a broad black line which had almost destroyed the letters, and at the end of this line, in brackets, was printed a word in French, which for the hundredth time Wabi translated aloud:
"Dead!"
"From the handwriting of the original we know that Ball was a man of some education," continued Rod. "And there is no doubt but that the birch-bark sketch was made by him. All of the writing was in one hand, with the exception of the signatures of Langlois and Plante, and you could hardly decipher the letters in those signatures if you did not already know their names. From these lines it is quite certain that we were right at the cabin when we concluded that the two Frenchmen killed the Englishman to get him out of the partnership. Isn't that story clear enough?"
"Yes, as far as you have gone," replied Wabi. "These three men discovered gold, quarreled, signed this agreement, and then Ball was murdered. The two Frenchmen, as Mukoki suggested at the cabin, came out a little later for supplies, and brought the buckskin bag full of gold with them. They had come as far as the cabin at the head of the chasm when they quarreled over possession of the map and agreement, fought, and died. From the old guns and other evidences we found near them we know that all this happened at least fifty years ago, and perhaps more. But—"
He paused, whistling softly.
"Where is the third waterfall?"
"I thought we settled that last winter," replied Rod, a little irritated by his companion's doubt. "If writing goes for anything, Ball was a man of education, and he drew the map according to some sort of scale. The second fall is only half as far from the first fall as the third fall is from the second, which is conclusive evidence of this. Now Mukoki discovered the first waterfall fifty miles down the chasm!"
"And we figured from the distances between John Ball's marks on the birch, that the third fall was about two hundred and fifty miles from our old camp at the head of the chasm," rejoined Wabigoon. "It looks reasonable."
"It is reasonable," declared Rod, his face flushed with excitement. "From the head of the chasm our trail is as plain as day. We can't miss it!"
Mukoki had been listening in silence, and now joined in the conversation for the first time.
"Must get to chasm first," he grunted, giving his shoulders a hunch that suggested a great deal.
Wabi returned the map to his pocket.
"You're right, Muky," he laughed. "We're climbing mountains before we come to them. It will be tough work getting to the chasm."
"Much water—ver' swift. River run lak twent' t'ous'nd cari-boo!"
"I'll bet the Ombabika is a raging torrent," said Rod.
"And we've got forty miles of it, all upstream," replied Wabi. "Then we come to the Height of Land. After that the streams run northward, to Hudson Bay, and when we reach them we'll hold our breath and pray instead of paddling. Oh, it will be exciting fun rushing down-stream on the floods!"
"But there is work before us to-morrow—hard work," said Rod. "And I'm going to bed. Good night!"
Mukoki and Wabigoon soon followed their companion's example, and half an hour later nothing but the crackling of the fire disturbed the stillness of the camp. Mukoki was as regular as clockwork in his rising, and an hour before dawn he was up and preparing breakfast. When his young comrades aroused themselves they found the ducks they had shot the preceding day roasting on spits over the fire, and coffee nearly ready. Rod also noticed that a part of the contents of the canoe were missing.
"Took load up to river," explained Mukoki in response to the youth's questioning.
"Working while we sleep, as usual," exclaimed the disgusted Wabigoon. "If it keeps on we'll deserve another whipping, Rod!"
Mukoki examined a fat bluebill, roasted to a rich brown, and gave it to Rod. Another he handed to Wabigoon, and with a third in his own hands he found a seat for himself upon the ground close to the coffee and bread.
"Ah, if this isn't fit for a king!" cried Rod, poising his savory bluebill on the end of a fork.
Half an hour later the three went to their canoe. Mukoki had already packed a half of its contents to the river, a quarter of a mile away, and he now loaded himself with the remainder while the two boys hoisted the light birch upon their shoulders. As Roderick caught his first glimpse of the Ombabika in the growing light of day he gave a cry of astonishment. When he had gone up the stream the preceding winter it was scarce more than a dozen gun lengths in width. Now it was a veritable Amazon, its black, ugly waters rolling and twisting like the slow boiling of a thick liquid over a fire. There was little rush about it, no frenzied haste, no mountain-like madness in the advance of the torrent. Rod had expected to see this, and he would not have been startled by it.
But there was something vastly more appalling in the flood that rolled slowly before his eyes, with its lazily twisting whirlpools, its thousand unseen currents, rolling the water here and there—always in different places—like the gurgling eruptions he had often observed in a pot of simmering oatmeal. There was something uncanny about it, something terribly suggestive of giant hands under the surface, waiting to pull them down. He knew, without questioning, that there was more deadly power in that creeping flood than in a dozen boisterous torrents thundering down from the mountains. In it were the cumulative waters of a score of those torrents, and in its broad, deep sweep into the big lake the currents and perils of each were combined into one great threatening force.
The thoughts that were in Rod's mind betrayed themselves as he looked at his companions. Mukoki was reloading the canoe. Wabi watched the flood.
"She's running pretty strong," said the Indian youth dubiously. "What do you think of it, Muky?"
"Keep close to shore," replied the old warrior, without stopping his work. "We mak' heem—safe!"
There was a good deal of consolation in Mukoki's words, for both youths still bore smarting reminders of his caution and good judgment. In a short time the canoe was safely launched where a small eddy had worked into the shore, and the three adventurers dug in their paddles. Mukoki, who held the important position in the stern, kept the bow of the birch within half a dozen yards of the bank, and to Rod's mind they slipped up-stream with amazing speed and ease. Now and then one of the upheavings of the currents would catch the canoe, and from the way in which it was pitched either to one side or the other Rod easily imagined what perils the middle of the stream would have held for them. Quick action on the part of Mukoki and Wabigoon was always necessary to counteract the effect of these upheavals, and in the bow Wabi was constantly on the alert. At no time could they tell when to expect the attacks of the unseen forces below. Ten feet ahead the water might be running as smooth as oil, then—a single huge bubble, as if a great fish had sent up a gasp of air—and in an instant it would be boiling like a small maelstrom.
Rod noticed that each time they were caught near one of these some unseen power seemed sucking them down, and that at those times the canoe would settle several inches deeper than when they were in calm water. The discovery thrilled him, and he wondered what one of the big eruptions out in mid-stream would do to them if they were caught in it. Other perils were constantly near them. Floating logs and masses of brush and other debris swept down with the flood, and Wabi's warning cries of "right," "left," and "back" came with such frequency that Rod's arms ached with the mighty efforts which he made with his paddle in response to them. Again the stream would boil with such fury ahead of them that Mukoki would put in to shore, and a portage would be made beyond the danger point. Five times during the day were the canoe and its contents carried in this manner, so that including all time lost an average of not more than two miles an hour was made. When camp was struck late that afternoon, however, Mukoki figured that they had covered half the distance up the Ombabika.
The following day's progress was even slower. With every mile the stream became narrower and swifter. The treacherous upheavals caused by undercurrents no longer harassed the gold seekers, but logs and debris swept down with greater velocity. Several times the frail canoe was saved from destruction only by the quick and united action of the three. They worked now like a well-regulated machine, engineered by Wabigoon, whose sharp eyes were always on the alert for danger ahead. This second day was one of thrills and tense anxiety for Rod, and he was glad when it came to an end. It was early, and the sun was still two hours high, when they stopped to camp.
Mukoki had chosen an open space, backed by a poplar-covered rocky ridge, and scarce had the bow of the canoe touched shore when Wabi gave an excited exclamation, caught up his rifle, and fired three rapid shots in the direction of a small clump of spruce near the foot of the mountain.
"Missed, by all that's good and great!" he yelled. "Quick, Mukoki, shove her in! There's the biggest bear I've seen in all my life!"
"Where?" demanded Rod. "Where is he?"
He dropped his paddle and snatched his own rifle, while Mukoki, keeping his self-possession, brought the canoe so that Wabi could leap ashore. Rod followed like a flash, and the two excited youths sped in the direction of the bear, leaving their companion to care for himself and the heavily-laden birch. A short, swift run brought them to the edge of the spruce, and with hearts beating wildly the two scanned the barren side of the mountain ahead of them. There was no sign of the bear.
"He turned down-stream!" cried Wabi, "We must cut—"
"There he is," whispered Rod sharply.
Just beginning the ascent of the mountain, four or five hundred yards below them, was the bear. Even at that distance Rod was amazed at the size of the beast.
"What a monster!" he gasped.
"Blaze away!" urged Wabi. "It's four hundred yards if it's a foot! Aim for the top of his back and you'll bring him!"
Suiting action to his words he fired the two remaining shots in his rifle, and as he slipped in fresh cartridges Rod continued the long-range fusillade. His first and second shots produced no effect. At his third the running animal paused for a moment and looked down at them, and the young hunter seized his opportunity to take a careful aim. At the report of his gun the bear gave a quick lunge forward, half-fell among the rocks, and then was off again.
"You hit him!" shouted Wabi, setting off on a dead run between the spruce and the mountain.
For a few brief moments Rod studied the situation as he reloaded. The bear was rapidly nearing the summit of the ridge. By swift running Wabigoon would have another fair shot before the animal got out of range. If that shot were a miss they would lose their game. In a flash he discerned a break in the mountain. If he could make that, and the bear turned in his direction—
Without further thought he ran toward the break. He heard the sharp reports of Wabi's rifle behind him, but didn't stop to see the effect of the fire. If it was another miss—every second counted. The cut in the mountain was clear. Breathlessly he dashed through it and stopped on the opposite side, his eyes eagerly scanning the rock-strewn ridge. He made no attempt to suppress the exclamation of joy that came to his lips when, fully eight hundred yards away, he discerned the bear coming down the side of the mountain, and in his direction. Crouching behind a huge boulder Rod waited. Seven hundred yards, six hundred, five hundred, and the bear turned, this time striking into the edge of the plain. The animal was traveling slowly, partly stopping in his flight now and then, and Rod knew that he was badly wounded. It was soon evident that the course being taken by the game would bring it no nearer, and the young hunter leveled his rifle.
Five hundred yards, more than a quarter of a mile!
This was desperate shooting, shooting that sent a strange thrill through Roderick Drew. The magnificent weapon in his hands was equal to the task. It would kill easily at that distance. But would he fail? He was confident that his first shot went high. His second had no effect. To his third there came the sharp response of a fourth from the top of the mountain. Wabigoon had reached the summit, and was firing at six hundred yards!
The bear stopped. With deadly precision Rod now took aim at the motionless animal. An instant after he had fired a wild shout burst from his throat, and was answered by Wabigoon's joyful yell from the mountain. It was a wonderful shot, and the bear was down!
The animal was dead when the triumphant young hunters reached its side. It was some time before either of them spoke. Panting from their exertions, both looked down in silence upon the huge beast at their feet. That he had made a remarkable kill Rod could see by the look of wonder in his companion's face. They were still mutely regarding the dead animal when Mukoki came through the break in the ridge and hurried toward them. His face, too, became filled with amazement when he saw the bear.
"Big bear!" he exclaimed.
There was a world of meaning in his words, and Rod flushed with pleasure.
"He weighs five hundred," said Wabi, "and he stands four feet at the shoulders if an inch."
"Fine rug!" grinned Mukoki.
"Let's see, Rod; he'll make a rug—" Wabi walked critically around the bear. "He'll make you a rug over eight feet long by about six in width. I wonder where he is hit?"
A brief examination showed that while the honors of the actual kill were with Rod, at least one, and perhaps two, of Wabi's shots had taken effect. The last shot from the white youth's rifle had struck the bear just below the right ear, causing almost instantaneous death. On this same side, which had been exposed to Rod's fire, was a body wound, undoubtedly made by the shot on the mountain side. When the animal was rolled over by the combined efforts of the three two more wounds were discovered on the left side, which had mostly been exposed to Wabigoon's fire. It was while examining these that the sharp-eyed Mukoki gave a sudden grunt of surprise.
"Heem shot before—long time ago! Old wound—feel bullet!"
Between his fingers he was working the loose hide back of the foreleg. The scar of an old wound was plainly visible, and both Rod and Wabi could feel the ball under the skin. There is something that fascinates the big game hunter in this discovery of an old wound in his quarry, and especially in the vast solitudes of the North, where hunters are few and widely scattered. It brings with it a vivid picture of what happened long ago, the excitement of some other chase, the well-directed shot, and at last the escape of the game. And so it was now. The heads of Rod and Wabigoon hung close over Mukoki's shoulders while the old Indian dug out the bullet with his knife. Another grunt of surprise fell from the pathfinder's lips as he dropped the pellet in the palm of his hand.
It was a strange-looking object, smooth, and curiously flattened.
"Ver' soft bullet," said Mukoki. "Never know lead thin, thin out lak that!"
With his knife he peeled off a thin slice of the ball.
"Heem—"
He held up the two pieces. In the sun they gleamed a dull, rich yellow.
"That bullet made of gold!" he breathed, scarcely above a whisper. "No yellow lead. That gold, pure gold!"
CHAPTER IX
UP THE OMBABIKA
For a few moments after Mukoki's remarkable discovery the three stood speechless. Wabigoon stared as if he could not bring himself to believe the evidence of his eyes. Rod was quivering with the old, thrilling excitement that had first come to him in the cabin where they had found the skeletons and the buckskin bag with its precious nuggets, and Mukoki's face was a study. The thin, long fingers which held the two pieces of the gold bullet trembled, which was an unusual symptom in the old pathfinder. It was he who broke the silence, and his words gave utterance to the question which had rushed into the heads of the two young hunters.
"Who shoot gold bullets at bear?"
And to this question there was, for the time, absolutely no answer. To tell who shot that bullet was impossible. But why was it used?
Wabigoon had taken the parts of the yellow ball and was weighing them in the palm of his hand.
"It weighs an ounce," he declared.
"Twenty dollars' worth of gold!" gasped Rod, as if he lacked breath to express himself. "Who in the wide world is shooting twenty dollar bullets at bear?" he cried more excitedly, repeating Mukoki's question of a minute before.
He, too, weighed the yellow pellets in his hand.
The puzzled look had gone out of Mukoki's face. Again the battle-scarred old warrior wore the stoic mask of his race, which only now and then is lifted for an instant by some sudden and unexpected happening. Behind that face, immobile, almost expressionless, worked a mind alive to every trick and secret of the vast solitudes, and even before his young comrades had gained the use of their tongues he was, in his savage imagination, traveling swiftly back over the trail of the monster bear to the gun that had fired the golden bullet. Wabigoon understood him, and watched him eagerly.
"What do you think of it, Muky?"
"Man shoot powder and ball gun, not cartridge," replied Mukoki slowly. "Old gun. Strange; ver' strange!"
"A muzzle loader!" said Wabi.
The Indian nodded.
"Had powder, no lead. Got hungry; used gold."
Eight words had told the story, or at least enough of it to clear away a part of the cloud of mystery, but the other part still remained.
Who had fired the bullet, and where had the gold come from?
"He must have struck it rich," said Wabi "else would he have a chunk of gold like that?"
"Where that come from—more, much more," agreed Mukoki shortly.
"Do you suppose—" began Rod. There was a curious thrill in his voice, and he paused, as if scarce daring to venture the rest of what he had meant to say. "Do you suppose—somebody has found—our gold?"
Mukoki and Wabigoon stared at him as if he had suddenly exploded a mine. Then Wabi turned and looked silently at the old Indian. Not a word was spoken. Silently Rod drew something from his pocket, carefully wrapped in a bit of cloth.
"You remember I kept this little nugget from my share in the buckskin bag, intending to have a scarf-pin made of it," he explained. "When I took my course in geology and mineralogy I learned that, if one had half a dozen specimens of gold, each from a different mine, the chances were about ten to one that no two of them would be exactly alike in coloring. Now—"
He exposed the nugget, and made a fresh cut in it with his knife, as Mukoki had done with the yellow bullet. Then the two gleaming surfaces were compared.
One glance was sufficient.
The gold was the same!
Wabi drew back, uttering something under his breath, his eyes gleaming darkly. Rod's face had suddenly turned a shade whiter, and Mukoki, not understanding the mysteries of mineralogy, stared at the youth in mute suspense.
"Somebody has found our gold!" cried Wabi, almost savagely.
"We are not sure," interrupted Rod. "We know only that the evidence is very suspicious. The rock formation throughout this country is almost identically the same, deep trap on top, with slate beneath, and for that reason it is very possible that gold found right in this locality would be of exactly the same appearance as gold found two hundred miles from here. Only—it's suspicious," Rod concluded.
"Man probably dead," consoled Mukoki. "No lead—hungry—shoot bear an' no git heem. Mebby starve!"
"The poor devil!" exclaimed Wabigoon. "We've been too selfish to give a thought to that, Rod. Of course he was hungry, or he wouldn't have used gold for bullets. And he didn't get this bear! By George—"
"I wish he'd got him," said Rod simply.
Somehow Mukoki's words sent a flush into his face. There came to him, suddenly, a mental picture of that possible tragedy in the wilderness: the starving man, his last hopeless molding of a golden bullet, the sight of the monster bear, the shot, and after that the despair and suffering and slow death of the man who had fired it.
"I wish he'd got it," he repeated. "We have plenty of grub."
Mukoki was already at work skinning the bear, and Rod and Wabigoon unsheathed their knives and joined him.
"Wound 'bout fi', six month old," said the Indian. "Shot just before snow."
"When there wasn't a berry in the woods for a starving man to eat," added Wabi. "Well, here's hoping he found something, Rod."
An hour later the three gold seekers returned to their canoe laden with the choicest of the bear meat, and the animal's skin, which was immediately stretched between two trees, high up out of the reach of depredating animals. Rod gazed at it proudly.
"We'll be sure and get it when we come back, won't we?"
"Sure," replied Wabi.
"It will be safe?"
"As safe as though it were at home."
"Unless somebody comes along and steals it," added Rod.
Wabi was busy unloading certain necessary articles from the canoe, but he ceased his work to look at Rod.
"Steal!" he cried in astonishment.
Mukoki, too, had heard Rod's remark and was listening.
"Rod," continued Wabigoon quietly, "that is one thing we don't have up here. Our great big glorious North doesn't know the word thief, except when it is applied to a Woonga. If a white hunter came along here to-morrow, and found that hide stretched so low that the animals were getting at it, he would nail it higher for us. An Indian, if he camped here, would build his fire so that the sparks wouldn't strike it. Rod, up here, where we don't know civilization, we're honest!"
"But down in the States," said Rod, "the Indians steal."
The words slipped from him. The next instant he would have given anything to have been able to recall them. Mukoki had grown a little more tense in his attitude.
"That's because white men have lived so much among them, white men who are called civilized," answered the young scion of Wabinosh House, his eyes growing bright. "White blood makes thieves. Pardon me for saying it, Rod, but it does, at least among Indians. But our white blood up here is different from yours. It's the same blood that's in our Indians, every drop of it honest, loyal to its friends, and it runs red and strong with the love of this great wilderness. There are exceptions, of course, as you have seen in the Woongas, who are an outlaw race. But we are honest, and Mukoki there, if he were dying of cold, wouldn't steal a skin to save himself. An ordinary Indian might take it, if he were dying for want of it, but not unless he had a gun to leave in its place!"
"I didn't mean to say what I did," said Rod. "Oh, I wish I were one of you! I love this big wilderness, and everything in it, and it's glorious to hear you say what you do!"
"You are one of us," cried Wabi, gripping his hand.
That evening, after they had finished their supper and the three were gathered about the fire, Wabigoon said:
"Muky could tell you one reason why the Indians of the North are honest if he wanted to, Rod. But he won't, so I will. There was once a tribe in the country of Mukoki's fore-fathers, along the Makoki River, which empties into the Albany, whose men were great thieves, and who stole from one another. No man's snare was safe from his neighbor, fights and killings were of almost daily occurrence, and the chief of the tribe was the greatest thief of all, and of course escaped punishment. This chief loved to set his own snares, and one day he was enraged to find that one of his tribe had been so bold as to set a snare within a few inches of his own, and in the trail of the same animal. He determined on meting out a terrible punishment, and waited.
"While he was waiting a rabbit ran into the snare of his rival. Picking up a stick he approached to kill the game, when suddenly there seemed to pass a white mist before his eyes, and when he looked again there was no rabbit, but the most wonderful creature he had ever beheld in the form of man, and he knew that it was the Great Spirit, and fell upon his face. And a great voice came to him, as if rolling from far beyond the most distant mountains, and it told him that the forests and streams of the red man's heaven were closed to him and his people, that in the hunting-grounds that came after death there was no place for thieves.
"'Go to your people,' he said, 'and tell them this. Tell them that from this day on, moon upon moon, until the end of time, must they live like brothers, setting their snares side by side without war, to escape the punishment that hovers over them.'
"And the chief told his people this," finished Wabi, "and from that hour there was no more thievery in the land. And because the Great Spirit came in the form he did the rabbit is the good luck animal of the Crees and Chippewayans of the far North, and wherever the snows fall deep, men set their traps side by side to this day, and do not rob."
Rod had listened with glowing eyes.
"It's glorious!" he repeated. "It's glorious, if it's true!"
"It is true," said Wabi. "In all this great country between here and the Barren Lands, where the musk-ox lives, there is not one Indian in a hundred who would steal another Indian's trap, or the game in it. It is one of the understood laws of the North that every hunter shall have his 'trap line,' or 'run,' and it is not courtesy for another trapper to encroach upon it; but if he should, and he should lay a trap close beside another's, it would not be wrong, for the law of the Great Spirit is greater than the law of man. Why, last winter even the outlaw Woongas made no effort to steal our traps, though they thirsted for our lives!"
"Mukoki," said Rod, rising, "I want to shake hands with you before I go to bed. I'm learning—fast. I wish I were half Indian!"
The next morning the journey up the Ombabika was resumed, and a little more of anxiety was now mingled with the enthusiasm of the adventurers. For no one of them could relieve himself of the possible significance of the gold bullet, the fear that their treasure had been discovered by another. Wabi regained his confidence first.
"I don't believe it!" he exclaimed at last. Without questioning, the others knew to what he referred. "I don't believe that our gold has been found. It is in the heart of the wildest country on the continent, and surely if such a rich find had been made we would have heard something about it at Wabinosh House or Kenegami, which are the nearest points of supply."
"Or, if it was found, the discoverer is dead," added Rod.
"Yes."
In the stern, Mukoki nodded and grunted his conviction.
"Dead," he repeated.
The Ombabika had now become narrow and violent. Against its swift current the canoe made but little headway, and at noon Mukoki announced that the river journey was at an end. For a few moments Rod did not recognize where they had landed. Then he gave a sudden cry of glad surprise.
"Why, this is where we had supper that night after our terrible adventure on the river last winter," he exclaimed.
From far off there came faintly to his ears a low, rumbling thunder.
"Listen! That's the river rushing through the break in the mountain where we walked the edge of the precipice!"
Wabi shrugged his shoulders at the memory of that fearful night and its desperate race to escape from the Woonga country.
"We've got to do the same thing again, only this time it will be in daylight."
"Long portage," said Mukoki. "Six mile. Carry everything."
"Until we reach the little creek in the plains beyond the mountain, where you shot the caribou?" asked Rod.
"Yes," replied Wabigoon. "That little creek will now be a pretty husky stream, and by hard work we can paddle up it until we come within about eight miles of our old camp at the head of the chasm, where we found the skeletons and the map."
"And from that point we shall have to carry our canoe and supplies to the creek in the chasm," finished Rod. "And then—hurrah for the gold!"
"Mak' old camp on mountain by night," said Mukoki.
Wabi broke into a happy laugh and thumped Rod on the back.
"Remember the big lynx you shot, Rod, and thought it was a Woonga, and had us all frightened out of our wits?" he cried.