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Updated: June 8, 2025
Sometime within the last hour the "dog mail" from Wabinosh House had passed that way on its long trip to civilization. But it was not the swift passage of man and dog that held the wolf rigidly alert, ready for flight and yet hesitating. It was something from the opposite direction, from the North, out of which the wind was coming.
They were days of unending toil, of fierce effort to beat out death in the race to Wabinosh House. For it seemed that the end of time was very near for John Ball. On the fourth day his thin cheeks showed signs of fever, and on the fifth he was tossing in delirium. The race now continued by night as well as by day, only an hour or two of rest being snatched at a time.
So it happened, one beautiful summer morning, that three big canoes put out into the lake from Wabinosh House and headed into the South, and only Mukoki, of all the seven who were going down into civilization, felt something that was not joy as the forests slipped behind them.
"But down in the States," said Rod, "the Indians steal." The words slipped from him. The next instant he would have given anything to have been able to recall them. Mukoki had grown a little more tense in his attitude. "That's because white men have lived so much among them, white men who are called civilized," answered the young scion of Wabinosh House, his eyes growing bright.
"By George, I wish we could!" exclaimed Rod with enthusiasm. "Coax Wabi, Minnetaki coax him hard." "You'll coax him, too, won't you, Rod? But then, I don't suppose it will do any good. And father and mother wouldn't listen to it for a moment. All of them are so afraid that some harm is going to befall me. That's why they sent me from Wabinosh House just before you boys returned.
"He is talking of some one whom he probably knew forty or fifty years ago," replied Rod. But his own face was white. He stared hard at Wabigoon, and a strange look came into Mukoki's face. "Dolores," he mused, without taking his eyes from Wabi. "It's a woman's name, or a girl's name. We must save John Ball! We must start for Wabinosh House now!"
The dogs from Wabinosh House were wildly famished and at the sight and odor of the great piece of meat which the courier began cutting up for them they set up a snarling and snapping of jaws, and began fighting indiscriminately among themselves until the voices of their human companions were almost drowned in the tumult.
A little later he came to Montreal, and being a youth of good education and considerable ambition, he easily secured a position and worked himself into the confidence of his employers, obtaining an appointment as factor at Wabinosh House, a Post deep in the wilderness of Lake Nipigon.
Those who were left moved to the vicinity of the Post. Hunters from Wabinosh House were ambushed and slain. Indians who came to the Post to trade were regarded as enemies, and the passing of years seemed to make but little difference. The feud still existed. The outlaws came to be spoken of as "Woongas," and a Woonga was regarded as a fair target for any man's rifle.
Mukoki grunted something that was a little less than approval, and Rod felt a peculiar sensation shoot through him as the frail birch headed out into the big lake. Their steady strokes sent the canoe through the water at fully four miles an hour, and by the time broad day had come the forest-clad shore at Wabinosh House was only a hazy outline in the distance.
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