United States or Guadeloupe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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.
He was on the trail of Minnetaki's captor, and the outlaw was carrying his victim in his arms! Minnetaki was injured! Perhaps she was dead. The fear gripped at his heart until he looked again at the imprint in the snow the widely spread fingers, the flat, firm palm. Only a living hand would have left its mark in that manner.
You told us that you followed the sledge tracks, and that after a time the party had been met by others on snow-shoes, and that among the imprints in the snow was one that made you think of Minnetaki. When we reached the Post we learned that Minnetaki and two sledges had gone to Kenegami House and at once concluded that those snow-shoe trails were made by Kenegami people sent out to meet her.
He whistled again, more loudly than before, and Minnetaki came hesitatingly toward the forest's edge, and when he whistled a third time there came a timid response from her, as if she recognized and yet doubted the notes that floated to her from the shadows of the balsams. Again Rod whistled, laughing as he drew a little farther back, and again Minnetaki answered, peering in among the trees.
It reminded him of Minnetaki, anyway; her foot would have made just such a trail, and he wondered if the girl who had stepped there was as pretty as she. He followed now a little faster than before, and ten minutes later he came to where a dozen snow-shoe trails had come in from the north and had joined the three.
Involuntarily he thought of what might have happened to Minnetaki, and he noticed that after passing this spectacle of death Mukoki doubled his speed. For an hour the pursuit continued without interruption. The Woongas were traveling in a narrow trail, single file, with the two sledges between their number.
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.
The boy held out his hand. "Let's shake on that, Minnetaki! I'll handle Mukoki, you take care of Maballa. What a picnic this next trip will be!" "And there'll be lots and lots of adventures, won't there?" asked the girl a little anxiously. "Plenty of them." Rod became immediately serious. "This will be the most important of all our trips, Minnetaki, that is, if John Ball lives.
For days he had been practising with his revolver and it was now in the holster at his side. Should he use it? Or might he hit Minnetaki? At his feet he saw a club and snatching this up he sped across the opening, the soft earth holding the sound of his steps.
He could feel the tremble of returning life in Wabi's body now, but the sight of the exhausted and bleeding dogs and the memory of his comrade's last words had filled him with a new and terrible fear. What had happened to Minnetaki? Why had the factor's son come all this distance for him?
Word Of The Day