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"Come in!" called Carmody, and gazed in surprise at the newcomer, who stared back at him without speaking. Wabishke advanced to the stove, and, fumbling in the pocket of his disreputable mackinaw, produced a very old and black cob-pipe, which he gravely extended toward the other. "No, thanks!" said Bill hastily. "Got one of my own."
Five minutes later another man carrying a rifle passed within a hundred feet of him and disappeared in the timber in the direction of Blood River Rapids. When he was gone Wabishke ran swiftly to the fallen man and conveyed him to the wigwam, where he plugged the bullet-hole with fat and bound up the wound. Two hours later the bushes parted and Jeanne Lacombie burst panting into the wigwam.
At their conclusion the others sought their blankets, while Jacques took the trail for the camp of old Wabishke whose help was needed in the undertaking which was to involve no small amount of labor.
"Get a light from the fire like you did before, you old fraud! I only have a few left." "Match," repeated the Indian, and Bill passed over his match-box, which was placed with the other items. Wabishke pointed toward the pack-sack. "Look here, you red Yankee!" exclaimed Bill. "Do you want my whole outfit for those things?"
The wigwam of old Wabishke, the Indian trapper, was pitched in a dense thicket on the shore of the little muskrat lake. In the early gray of the morning the old Indian was startled by the sound of a shot. He peered cautiously through the branches and saw a man pitch forward among the rice-stalks.
Thus did the lonely girl in a far distant city unconsciously win a silent victory for the man she loved and who loved her. Very early in the morning on the day of the storm which had been welcomed by the lumber-jacks of the Blood River camp, old Wabishke started over his trap-line.
Blood River Jack replied with an indefinite sweep of his arm to the southward. "Well, y' ain't in no hurry. Never seen a Injun yet cudn't stop long 'nough to take a drink o' licker. Har, har, har!" He laughed foolishly, with an exaggerated wink toward the old Indian. "How 'bout it, Wabishke; leetle fire-water make yer belt fit better? 'Tain't a goin' to cost y' nawthin'."
As the two women finished the preparation of breakfast the following morning, the half-breed appeared, followed closely by the old Indian trapper whose scarred lips broke into a hideous grin at the sight of Bill. "This is Wabishke, of whom I spoke," said Jacques, indicating the Indian. Bill laughingly extended his hand, which the other took. "Well! If it isn't my friend, the Yankee!" he exclaimed.
The air was heavy with the promise of snow, and one by one the Indian took up his traps and hung them in saplings that they might not be buried. After the storm, with the Northland lying silent under its mantle of white, and the comings and goings of the fur-bearers recorded in patterns of curious tracery, Wabishke would again fare forth upon the trap-line.
Wabishke decided to investigate, for in the Northland no smallest detail may pass unaccounted for. Swiftly he descended the ridge and, gliding silently into the aftergrowth of spindling saplings that reared their sickly heads among the stumps, gained the rear of the shack. Noiselessly he advanced, and, peering between the unchinked logs, surveyed the interior.
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