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Updated: September 9, 2025
Then he crouched, advancing foot by foot, yard by yard, so slowly that he seemed to be on his hands and knees. "He can hear them, but he can't see them!" breathed Wabigoon. "See! He places his ear to the ground! Now he has got his bearings again as straight as a die! Good old Muky!" The old Indian crept on. In his excitement Rod clenched his hands and he seemed to live without breathing.
From the cedars beyond the old cabin came Mukoki's whooping signal that dinner was ready. For a few moments after Rod's words and Mukoki's signal from the cedars Wabigoon sat as if stunned. "It isn't gold," he said, his voice filled with questioning doubt. "That's just what it is!" declared Rod, his words now rising in the excitement which he was vainly striving to suppress.
Mukoki spoke no word but ran back to the camp and threw a great armful of dry fuel upon the fire. Wabigoon still remained at the edge of the pool, dripping and shivering. His hands were clenched, and Rod could see that they were filled with sand and gravel. Mechanically the Indian opened his fingers and looked at what he had unconsciously brought up from under the fall.
The glimpse he had caught of Wabi's bloodshot eyes, the terrible thinness of the Indian youth's face, the chilling lifelessness of his hands, made him shiver with dread. Was it possible that a few short hours could bring about that remarkable transformation? And where was Mukoki, the faithful old warrior from whose guardianship Wabigoon and Minnetaki were seldom allowed to escape?
In his excitement he got upon his feet and sent his fifth and last shot after the fleeing outlaws. "Hurrah! Wow! Let's go after 'em!" "Get down!" commanded Wabi. "Load in a hurry!" Clink clink clink sounded the new shells as Mukoki and Wabigoon thrust them into their magazines.
Though Wabigoon was not more than a dozen yards ahead, Rod could only now and then catch a fleeting vision of him through the gloom. Mukoki, doubled over in his harness, was hardly more than a blotch in the early night. Only the wolf was near enough to offer companionship to the tired and down-spirited youth.
The old warrior had been gone for about an hour when suddenly there came the report of a gun from far down the stream, which was quickly followed by two others three in rapid succession. After an interval of a few seconds there sounded two other shots. "The signal!" cried Rod. "Mukoki wants us!" Wabigoon sprang to his feet and emptied the five shots of his magazine into the air. "Listen!"
Day after day now passed without evidences of new trails, and each day added to the hopes of the adventurers that they were at last to be left alone in the country. Never had Mukoki or Wabigoon been in a better trapping ground, and every visit to their lines added to their hoard of furs.
"Get a few spruce boughs, Rod, and cover them over with one of the wolf skins. The two lynx pelts will make the warmest blankets you ever had." Rod quickly availed himself of this idea, and within half an hour he was sleeping soundly. Mukoki and Wabigoon, more inured to the hardships of the wilderness, took only brief snatches of slumber, one or both awakening now and then to replenish the fire.
A few weeks more, when spring had come, he would have returned to his friends accompanied by his mother, and they three Mukoki, Wabigoon and he would have set out on their romantic quest for the lost gold-mine that had been revealed to them by the ancient skeletons in the old cabin.
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