United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Woonga, chief of a warlike tribe, had been his rival, and when the white man won in the battle for love his fierce heart blazed with the fire of hatred and revenge. From that day the relentless strife against the people of Wabinosh House began. The followers of Woonga turned from trappers and hunters to murderers and outlaws, and became known all over that wilderness country as the Woongas.
The Woongas had not returned to bury their dead, and the bones beside which he stopped were those of the outlaw whom Wabigoon had killed, picked clean by the small animals of the forest. Mukoki returned to his pack and sat down As darkness fell about him he made no effort to build a fire. He had brought food, but did not eat it.
I've got one, Mukoki has another and you lost the third in your fight with the Woongas!" The venison had begun to burn, and Mukoki quickly transferred it to the table. Without a word the three sat down to their meal. "That means the Woongas are on our trail," declared Rod presently. "That is what I have been trying to reason out all the afternoon," replied Wabi.
Slowly, even as the instincts of his race had aroused the latent, brutish love of slaughter and the chase in the tamed wolf, the long smothered instincts of these human children of the forest began to betray themselves in their bronzed countenances. Rod watched, and he was thrilled to the soul. Back at the old cabin they had declared war upon the Woongas.
In a flash all that passed after that came before him like a picture; the days that he and Minnetaki had rambled together in the forest, the furious battle in which, single-handed, he had saved her from those fierce outlaw Indians of the North, the Woongas; and after that he thought of the weeks of thrilling adventure they three Mukoki, Wabigoon and himself had spent in the wilderness far from the Hudson Bay Post, of their months of trapping, their desperate war with the Woongas, the discovery of the century-old cabin and its ancient skeletons, and their finding of the birch-bark map between the bones of one of the skeleton's fingers, on which, dimmed by age, was drawn the trail to a land of gold.
He heard no sound from above, yet he knew that the outlaws were very near only waiting for the protecting darkness of night. He heard the crackling of Wabi's fire and the odor of coffee came to him; and Wabi, assured that their presence was known to the Woongas, began whistling cheerily. In a few minutes he rejoined Rod behind the rock.
Even Wabi, worked up more in battle enthusiasm than by gold fever, conceded that if half of the Woongas were in this country they were much too powerful for them to cope with successfully, especially as one of them was without a rifle.
For a long time he had been secretly puzzled, and had evolved certain ideas of his own because of the movements of the Woongas. Contrary to the opinions of Mukoki and Wabigoon, he believed that the red outlaws were perfectly conscious of their presence in the dip. From the first their actions had been unaccountable, but not once had one of their snow-shoe trails crossed their trap-lines.
His mind was working as never before in his life. When they reached the camp in which the wounded Mukoki had lain after their escape from the Woongas, could he find the old trail where he had seen Minnetaki's footprints? He was quite sure of himself, and yet he was conscious of an indefinable something growing in him as he noticed more and more what the sun had done that day.
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.
Word Of The Day