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Rod, seeing Minnetaki fall in a sobbing, frightened heap, forgot all else but to run to her, smooth back her hair and comfort her with all of the assurances at his boyish command. It was here that Wabi and the old Indian guide found them five minutes later.
"I'm ashamed of you, Roderick Drew!" said the girl, standing before him in mock displeasure. "You and Wabi were the stupidest things I ever saw at dinner! Have you all forgotten your promise to me? your promise that I should go with you on your next trip? I wanted you to speak about it right there at dinner!" "But I I couldn't!" stammered Rod awkwardly. "But I'm going!" said Minnetaki decisively.
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.
With these precautions it was believed that no harm 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 that awaited them in the great North. By this time it was bitter cold. The lakes and rivers were frozen deep and a light snow covered the ground.
"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.
When he finally fell asleep it was to dream of the Indian mother and her child; only after a little there was no child, and the woman changed into Minnetaki, and the ravenous wolves into men. From this unpleasant picture he was aroused by a series of prods in his side, and opening his eyes he beheld Wabi in his blankets a yard away, pointing over and beyond him and nodding his head.
He was astonished to find how swiftly and easily he could travel in them, and was satisfied that he could make twenty miles a day even as a tenderfoot. Left to his own thoughts he found his mind recurring once more to the Woongas and Minnetaki. Why was Wabi worried? Inwardly he did not believe that it was a dream alone that was troubling him. There was still some cause for fear.
A swift messenger brought news of the attack and of the old chief's death to Wabinosh House, and with a dozen men Newsome hastened to the assistance of his betrothed and her people. A counter attack was made upon 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.
When he was a dozen feet behind the Indians Minnetaki stumbled in a sudden effort to free herself, and as one of her captors half turned to drag her to her feet he saw the enraged youth, club uplifted, bearing down upon them like a demon. A terrific yell from Rod, a warning cry from the Indian, and the fray began.
Half a century or more ago the men whose skeletons they had found in the old cabin had braved the perils of those trackless solitudes, and somewhere hundreds of miles out in that black gloom they had found gold, the gold that had fallen as an inheritance to them in the discovery of the old birch-bark map. And somewhere, somewhere out there was Minnetaki!
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