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"We have heard nothing of them for a week past," said Will. "The greater reason to expect them, because the word has been sent over a thousand miles of snow fields that we are here to be eaten. I know you are brave, watchful and quick, but take many arrows and see that Roka and Pehansan do the same." Will was gay and light of heart, but he obeyed the injunction of Inmutanka and filled the quiver.
His mind was full of such thoughts, but Will, exhilarated by motion, was looking at the mountain tops which, like vast white pillars, were supporting a sky of glittering blue. He swept his hand in a wide gesture. "It's a fit place up there for Manitou to live," he said. "Beyond the blue the hunting grounds go on forever," said Pehansan.
"While Manitou has given us the fire to serve as a wall around us, he tells us also that we must watch every minute of the night with the bows and arrows always in our hands, or we die." "Aye," said Pehansan, "there is one that comes too near now!" He sent an arrow slithering at a bulky figure dimly outlined not more than ten yards away.
"But he'll feed our people down in the village," said Pehansan, who was also in good spirits. "Still the wild beasts are coming nearer. It is great luck that we have so much wood for the fires." He and Will built the fires higher, while Roka sent two or three arrows at the green or yellow eyes in the dark.
The figures of Roka and Pehansan were hidden from him almost instantly by the bushes and he went forward slowly, picking his dangerous way on the snowshoes, his heart beating hard. He still had the feeling that he was creeping upon a mammoth or mastodon, and the low puffing and blowing increased in volume, indicating very clearly that it came from mighty lungs.
He could walk well on the snowshoes though he was not as expert as the Indians, but he held himself steady and made no noise among the bushes as they advanced, Pehansan leading, with Roka next. "Very near now," whispered Pehansan, looking at the deep tracks, his eyes still glowing.
The snow itself, which had now begun to soften at the surface, lay to a depth of about three feet, hiding the river save where the Indians had cut holes through ice and snow to capture fish. Pehansan, an inveterate hunter who would willingly have passed a thousand years of good life in such pursuits, had an idea that elk might be found in some of the secluded alcoves to the north.
The valley at this point was not more than two miles wide, and Pehansan had his eyes set on a deep gorge to the left, where the cedars and pines sheltered from the winds seemed to have grown to an uncommon size. "May find elk in here, where snow is not deep. Best place to look. Don't you think?" he said. "I agree with you," replied Will. "Pehansan speaks well," said Roka.
Will, trembling from his exertions and limping from the broken snowshoe approached cautiously, still viewing that huge, hairy form with wonder and some apprehension. Nor were Roka and Pehansan free from the same nervous strain and awe. "What is it?" asked Will, "a mammoth or a mastodon?"
Will, who at any other time would have found the meat of the bull too tough before pounding, ate, and he ate, too, with an appetite, Roka and Pehansan joining with vigor. The odor of the cooking steak penetrated the darkness about them and they heard the fierce growling of bears and the screaming of great cats.
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