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Updated: June 3, 2025
Mukoki grinned, chuckled in his curious way, and a few moments later signaled Wabi to guide the canoe ashore. "We portage here," he explained. "Current swift there mebby go over fall!" A short carry of two or three hundred yards brought them to the cataract. It was, as Mukoki had said after his long trip of exploration a few months before, a very small fall, not more than a dozen feet in height.
Only the one word fell from the old Indian, but it was filled with a new warning. Who had fired the five shots? The hunters gazed blankly at one another, mute questioning in their eyes. Without speaking, Mukoki pointed suggestively to the clearer channel of the river beyond the cedars. Evidently he thought the shots had come from there. Wabi shook his head. "There was no trail," he whispered.
Once in the cabin he dropped into a chair, exhausted, and both Rod and Wabigoon joined in relieving him of his boots and outer garments. It was evident that Mukoki had been traveling hard, for only once or twice before in his life had Wabi seen him so completely fatigued. Quickly the young Indian had a huge steak broiling over the fire, and Rod put an extra handful of coffee in the pot.
His face had softened, and for the second time Rod knew that he had touched the heartstrings of his red comrade. They returned to the fire, and Wabi made room for them upon the log beside him. In his hand he held a copy of the old birch-bark map. "I've been thinking about this all day," he said, spreading it out so that the others could see.
Wabi had been lowered from the back of his captor and was now walking. He was on snow-shoes and his strides were quite even and of equal length with the others. Evidently he was not badly wounded. Half a mile ahead of them was a high hill and between them and this hill was a dense growth of cedar, filled with tangled windfalls.
He waited for no reply, but darted back to the other trail, with Wabi and Rod close behind him. A quarter of a mile farther on the old pathfinder paused and pointed in exultant silence at a tiny footprint close beside the path of the sledge. At almost regular intervals now there appeared this sign of Minnetaki's moccasin.
More than once Wabi had told him of these treacherous traps, made by the mountain streams, and of the almost certain death that awaited the unlucky canoe man drawn into their smothering embrace. There was no angry raging of the flood here; at first it seemed to Rod that they were floating almost without motion upon a black, lazy sea that made neither sound nor riffle.
With these precautions it was believed that no harm could come to Minnetaki or other young girls of the Post. It was, therefore, on a Monday, the fourth day of November, that Rod, Wabi and Mukoki turned their faces at last to the adventures that awaited them in the great North. By this time it was bitter cold. The lakes and rivers were frozen deep and a light snow covered the ground.
Yet neither seemed possessed with a desire to return to their interrupted sleep. "Wolf is a curious beast," mused Wabi softly. "You might think he was a sneaking, traitorous cur of a wolf to turn against his own breed and lure them to death. But he isn't. Wolf, as well as Mukoki, has good cause for what he does. You might call it animal vengeance.
He understood now why this old stub had drawn his companions away from their search for gold, and he felt the flush of excitement go out of his own cheeks, and an involuntary thrill pass up his back. "The mad hunter!" Wabi nodded. Mukoki grunted and rubbed his hands. "Gold in bullet come from here!" said the old pathfinder. "Bad dog man ver' swift on trail. We hurry get canoe cut down tree!"
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