Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
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.
Had Makoki, the leather-faced old Cree runner between God's Lake and Fort Churchill, known the history of Miki and Neewa up to the point where they came to feast on the fat and partly devoured carcass of the young caribou bull, he would have said that Iskoo Wapoo, the Good Spirit of the beasts, was watching over them most carefully.
He saw Makoki hurrying toward him with ANOTHER club, and under his shelter he made himself as small as he could. He was filled with a great dread, for now he understood the truth. THESE men were not Challoner. They were hunting for him with clubs in their hands. He knew what the clubs meant. His shoulder was almost broken. He lay very still while the men searched about him.
And here is where Makoki, the old Cree runner, would have emphasized the presence of the Beneficent Spirit. For day followed day, and night followed night, and Ahtik's flesh and blood put into Neewa and Miki a strength and growth that developed marvellously. By the fourth day Neewa had become so fat and sleek that he was half again as big as on the day he fell out of the canoe.
For Makoki had great faith in the forest gods as well as in those of his own tepee. He would have given the story his own picturesque version, and would have told it to the little children of his son's children; and his son's children would have kept it in their memory for their own children later on.
He called out loudly to Makoki that he had killed a young wolf or a fox, and dashed out into the darkness. The club had knocked Miki fairly into the heart of a thick ground spruce. There he lay, making no sound, with a terrible pain in his shoulder. Between himself and the fire he saw the man bend over and pick up the club.
But from some one of those who had fallen there had gone out a wild, terrible cry, and even as Rod and Makoki rushed out to free Wabigoon there came an answering yell from the direction of the Woonga camp. Mukoki's knife was in his hand by the time he reached Wabi, and with one or two slashes he had released his hands. "You hurt bad?" he asked. "No no!" replied Wabi.
At last he came almost to the shore of the Loon, and there he saw the campfire of Makoki and the white man. He did not rush in. He did not bark or yelp; the hard schooling of the wilderness had already set its mark upon him. He slunk in cautiously then stopped, flat on his belly, just outside the rim of firelight. Then he saw that neither of the men was Challoner.
But Makoki knew nothing of their adventures, and on this morning when they came down to the feast he was a hundred miles away, haggling with a white man who wanted a guide. He would never know that Iskoo Wapoo was at his side that very moment, planning the thing that was to mean so much in the lives of Neewa and Miki. Meanwhile Neewa and Miki went at their breakfast as if starved.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking