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Updated: May 6, 2025
Mukoki had hoisted the gunny sack full of fish well up against the roof of the cabin to keep it from chance marauders of the night, and Father Roland stood by while David lowered it and made a choice for Baree's supper. Then he reëntered the cabin. It was not Baree who drew David slowly into the forest. He wanted to be alone, away from Father Roland and the quiet, insistent scrutiny of the Cree.
Then he sat down in the light, his head bent over, and for many minutes he worked at his tedious task while Wabi and Rod hung back in soundless suspense. Half an hour later Mukoki straightened himself, rose to his feet and held out the precious film to Rod.
"It would have taken us at least two weeks to build as good a one. Isn't it luck?" "We're going to live in it?" inquired his companion. "Live in it! I should say we were. It is three times as big as the shack we had planned to build. I can't understand why two men like those fellows should have put up such a large cabin. What do you think, Mukoki?" Mukoki shook his head.
There was little change in his condition during the night that followed, except that now and then he muttered incoherently, and at these times Rod always caught in his ravings the name that he had heard in the cavern. The next day there was no change. And there was still none on the third. Even Mukoki, who had tried every expedient of wilderness craft in nursing, gave up in despair.
He held out his hand and the two boys joined their pledge in a hearty grip. "Next spring!" reiterated Wabi. "And we go in canoe," joined Mukoki. "Creek grow bigger. We make birch-bark canoe at first fall." "That is better still," added Wabi. "It will be a glorious trip! We'll take a little vacation at the third fall and run up to James Bay."
From inside his clothes, where it had been kept warm by his body, Mukoki produced the flask of blood. A third of this blood he scattered upon the face of the rock and upon the snow at its base. The remainder he distributed, drop by drop, in trails running toward the swamp and plains.
Then came a low moaning cry, a cry that was human in its agony, and yet which had in it something so near the savage that even Wabigoon found himself trembling as he strained in futile effort to pierce the impenetrable gloom ahead. Before the cry had lost itself in the distances of the cavern Mukoki was leading them on again. Step by step they followed in the path taken by the strange light.
Already two weeks behind their plans, the young wolf hunters and the old Indian made forced marches around the northern extremity of Lake Nipigon and on the sixth day found themselves on the Ombabika River, where they were compelled to stop on account of a dense snow-storm. A temporary camp was made, and it was while constructing this camp that Mukoki discovered signs of wolves.
"It must have been the madman!" "Yes." "And he was here yesterday!" "Probably the day before," said Wabi. The young Indian turned suddenly to Mukoki. "What did he want of the fire if he didn't cook meat?" he asked. Mukoki shrugged his shoulders but did not answer. "Well, it wasn't cooked, anyway," declared Wabi, again examining the bones. "Here are chunks of raw flesh clinging to the bones.
At any moment he expected to hear the sharp crack of a rifle and to see Mukoki tumble forward upon his face. Or there might be a fusillade of shots and he himself might feel the burning sting that comes with rifle death. At the distance from which they would shoot the outlaws could not miss. Did not Mukoki realize this?
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