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But at no time did he give up his determination to explore the chasm. From the first Mukoki and Wabigoon had regarded this project with little favor, declaring the impossibility of discovering gold under snow, even though gold was there; so Rod waited and watched for an opportunity to make the search alone, saying nothing about his plans.

On a beautiful day late in December, when the sun rose with dazzling brightness, his opportunity came. Wabi was to remain in camp, and Mukoki, who was again of the belief that they were safe from the Woongas, was to follow one of the trap-lines alone. Supplying himself well with food, taking Wabi's rifle, a double allowance of cartridges, a knife, belt-ax, and a heavy blanket in his pack, Rod set out for the chasm. Wabi laughed as he stood in the doorway to see him off.

"Good luck to you, Rod; hope you find gold," he cried gaily, waving a final good-by with his hand.

"If I don't return to-night don't you fellows worry about me," called back the youth. "If things look promising I may camp in the chasm and take up the hunt again in the morning."

He now passed quickly to the second ridge, knowing from previous experience that it would be impossible to make a descent into the gulch from the first mountain. This range, a mile south of the camp, had not been explored by the hunters, but Rod was sure that there was no danger of losing himself as long as he followed along the edge of the chasm which was in itself a constant and infallible guide. Much to his disappointment he found that the southern walls of this mysterious break between the mountains were as precipitous as those on the opposite side, and for two hours he looked in vain for a place where he might climb down. The country was now becoming densely wooded and he was constantly encountering signs of big game. But he paid little attention to these. Finally he came to a point where the forest swept over and down the steep side of the mountain, and to his great joy he saw that by strapping his snow-shoes to his back and making good use of his hands it was possible for him to make a descent.

Fifteen minutes later, breathless but triumphant, he stood at the bottom of the chasm. On his right rose the strip of cedar forest; on his left he was shut in by towering walls of black and shattered rock. At his feet was the little stream which had played such an important part in his golden dreams, frozen in places, and in others kept clear of ice by the swiftness of its current. A little ahead of him was that gloomy, sunless part of the chasm into which he had peered so often from the top of the ridge on the north. As he advanced step by step into its mysterious silence, his eyes alert, his nerves stretched to a tension of the keenest expectancy, there crept over him a feeling that he was invading that enchanted territory which, even at this moment, might be guarded by the spirits of the two mortals who had died because of the treasure it held.

Narrower and narrower became the walls high over his head. Not a ray of sunlight penetrated into the soundless gloom. Not a leaf shivered in the still air. The creek gurgled and spattered among its rocks, without the note of a bird or the chirp of a squirrel to interrupt its monotony. Everything was dead. Now and then Rod could hear the wind whispering over the top of the chasm. But not a breath of it came down to him. Under his feet was only sufficient snow to deaden his own footsteps, and he still carried his snow-shoes upon his back.

Suddenly, from the thick gloom that hung under one of the cragged walls, there came a thundering, unearthly sound that made him stop, his rifle swung half to shoulder. He saw that he had disturbed a great owl, and passed on. Now and then he paused beside the creek and took up handful after handful of its pebbles, his heart beating high with hope at every new gleam he caught among them, and never sinking to disappointment though he found no gold. The gold was here—somewhere. He was as certain of that as he was of the fact that he was living, and searching for it. Everything assured him of that; the towering masses of cleft rock, whole walls seeming about to crumble into ruin, the broad margins of pebbles along the creek—everything, to the very stillness and mystery in the air, spoke this as the abode of the skeletons' secret.

It was this inexplicable something—this unseen, mysterious element hovering in the air that caused the white youth to advance step by step, silently, cautiously, as though the slightest sound under his feet might awaken the deadliest of enemies. And it was because of this stealth in his progress that he came very close upon something that was living, and without startling it. Less than fifty yards ahead of him he saw an object moving slowly among the rocks. It was a fox. Even before the animal had detected his presence he had aimed and fired.

Thunderous echoes rose up about him. They rolled down the chasm, volume upon volume, until in the ghostly gloom between the mountain walls he stood and listened, a nervous shiver catching him once or twice. Not until the last echo had died away did he approach where the fox lay upon the snow. It was not red. It was not black. It was not—

His heart gave a big excited thump. The bleeding creature at his feet was the most beautiful animal he had ever seen—and the tip of its thick black fur was silver gray.

Then, in that lonely chasm, there went up a great human whoop of joy.

"A silver fox!"

Rod spoke the words aloud. For five minutes he stood and looked upon his prize. He held it up and stroked it, and from what Wabi and Mukoki had told him he knew that the silken pelt of this creature was worth more to them than all the furs at the camp together.

He made no effort to skin it, but put the animal in his pack and resumed his slow, noiseless exploration of the gulch.

He had now passed beyond those points in the range from which he had looked down into this narrow, shut-in world. Ever more wild and gloomy became the chasm. At times the two walls of rock seemed almost to meet far above his head; under gigantic, overhanging crags there lurked the shadows of night. Fascinated by the grandeur and loneliness of the scenes through which he was passing Rod forgot the travel of time. Mile after mile he continued his tireless trail. He had no inclination to eat. He stopped only once at the creek to drink. And when he looked at his watch he was astonished to find that it was three o'clock in the afternoon.

It was now too late to think of returning to camp. Within an hour the day gloom of the chasm would be thickening into that of night. So Rod stopped at the first good camp site, threw off his pack, and proceeded with the building of a cedar shelter. Not until this was completed and a sufficient supply of wood for the night's fire was at hand did he begin getting supper. He had brought a pail with him and soon the appetizing odors of boiling coffee and broiling moose sirloin filled the air.

CHAPTER XI

RODERICK'S DREAM

A chilling loneliness now crept over the young adventurer. Even as he ate he tried to peer out into the mysterious darkness. A sound from up the chasm, made by some wild prowler of the night, sent a nervous tremor through him. He was not afraid; he would not have confessed to that. But still, the absolute, almost gruesome silence between the two mountains, the mere knowledge that he was alone in a place where the foot of man had not trod for more than half a century, was not altogether quieting to his nerves. What mysteries might not these grim walls hold? What might not happen here, where everything was so strange, so weird, and so different from the wilderness world just over the range?

Rod tried to laugh away his nervousness, but the very sound of his own voice was distressing. It rose in unnatural shivering echoes—a low, hollow mockery of a laugh beating itself against the walls; a ghost of a laugh, Rod thought, and that very thought made him hunch closer to the fire. The young hunter was not superstitious, or at least he was not unnaturally so; but what man or boy is there in this whole wide world of ours who does not, at some time, inwardly cringe from something in the air—something that does not exist and never did exist, but which holds a peculiar and nameless fear for the soul of a human being?

And Rod, as he piled his fire high with wood and shrank in the warmth of his cedar shelter, felt that nameless dread; and there came to him no thought of sleep, no feeling of fatigue, but only that he was alone, absolutely alone, in the mystery and almost unending silence of the chasm. Try as he would he could not keep from his mind the vision of the skeletons as he had first seen them in the old cabin.

Many, many years ago, even before his own mother was born, those skeletons had trod this very chasm. They had drunk from the same creek as he, they had clambered over the same rocks, they had camped perhaps where he was camping now! They, too, in flesh and life, had strained their ears in the grim silence, they had watched the flickering light of their camp-fire on the walls of rock—and they had found gold!

Just now, if Rod could have moved himself by magic, he would have been safely back in camp. He listened. From far back over the trail he had followed there came a lonely, plaintive, almost pleading cry.

"'Ello—'ello—'ello!"

It sounded like a distant human greeting, but Rod knew that it was the awakening night cry of what Wabi called the "man owl." It was weirdly human-like; and the echoes came softly, and more softly, until ghostly voices seemed to be whispering in the blackness about him.

"'Ello—'ello—'ello!"

The boy shivered and laid his rifle across his knees. There was tremendous comfort in the rifle. Rod fondled it with his fingers, and two or three times he felt as though he would almost like to talk to it. Only those who have gone far into the silence and desolation of the unblazed wilderness know just how human a good rifle becomes to its owner. It is a friend every hour of the night and day, faithful to its master's desires, keeping starvation at bay and holding death for his enemies; a guaranty of safety at his bedside by night, a sharp-fanged watch-dog by day, never treacherous and never found wanting by the one who bestows upon it the care of a comrade and friend. Thus had Rod come to look upon his rifle. He rubbed the barrel now with his mittens; he polished the stock as he sat in his loneliness, and long afterward, though he had determined to remain awake during the night, he fell asleep with it clasped tightly in his hands.

It was an uneasy, troubled slumber in which the young adventurer's visions and fears took a more realistic form. He half sat, half lay, upon his cedar boughs; his head fell forward upon his breast, his feet were stretched out to the fire. Now and then unintelligible sounds fell from his lips, and he would start suddenly as if about to awaken, but each time would sink back into his restless sleep, still clutching the gun.

The visions in his head began to take a more definite form. Once more he was on the trail, and had come to the old cabin. But this time he was alone. The window of the cabin was wide open, but the door was tightly closed, just as the hunters had found it when they first came down into the dip. He approached cautiously. When very near the window he heard sounds—strange sounds—like the clicking of bones!

Step by step in his dream he approached the window and looked in. And there he beheld a sight that froze him to the marrow. Two huge skeletons were struggling in deadly embrace. He could hear no sound but the click-click-click of their bones. He saw the gleam of knives held between fleshless fingers, and he saw now that both were struggling for the possession of something that was upon the table. Now one almost reached it, now the other, but neither gained possession.

The clicking of the bones became louder, the struggle fiercer, the knives of the skeleton combatants rose and fell. Then one staggered back and sank in a heap on the floor.

For a moment the victor swayed, tottered to the table, and gripped the mysterious object in its bony fingers.

As it stumbled weakly against the cabin wall the gruesome creature held the object up, and Rod saw that it was a roll of birch-bark!

An ember in the dying fire snapped with a sound like the report of a small pistol and Rod sat bolt upright, awake, staring, trembling. What a horrible dream! He drew in his cramped legs and approached the fire on his knees, holding his rifle in one hand while he piled on wood with the other.

What a horrible dream!

He shuddered and ran his eyes around the impenetrable wall of blackness that shut him in, the thought constantly flashing through his mind, what a horrible dream—what a horrible dream!

He sat down again and watched the flames of his fire as they climbed higher and higher. The light and the heat cheered him, and after a little he allowed his mind to dwell upon the adventure of his slumber. It had made him sweat. He took off his cap and found that the hair about his forehead was damp.

All the different phases of a dream return to one singly when awake, and it was with the suddenness of a shot that there came to Rod a remembrance of the skeleton hand held aloft, clutching between its gleaming fleshless fingers the roll of birch-bark. And with that memory of his dream there came another—the skeleton in the cabin was clutching a piece of birch-bark when they had buried it!

Could that crumpled bit of bark hold the secret of the lost mine?

Was it for the possession of that bark instead of the buckskin bag that the men had fought and died?

As the minutes passed Rod forgot his loneliness, forgot his nervousness and only thought of the possibilities of the new clue that had come to him in a dream. Wabi and Mukoki had seen the bark clutched in the skeleton fingers, but they as well as he had given it no special significance, believing that it had been caught up in some terrible part of the struggle when both combatants were upon the floor, or perhaps in the dying agonies of the wounded man against the wall. Rod remembered now that they had found no more birch-bark upon the floor, which they would have done if a supply had been kept there for kindling fires. Step by step he went over the search they had made in the old cabin, and more and more satisfied did he become that the skeleton hand held something of importance for them.

He replenished his fire and waited impatiently for dawn. At four o'clock, before day had begun to dispel the gloom of night, he cooked his breakfast and prepared his pack for the homeward journey. Soon afterward a narrow rim of light broke through the rift in the chasm. Slowly it crept downward, until the young hunter could make out objects near him and the walls of the mountains.

Thick shadows still defied his vision when he began retracing his steps over the trail he had made the day before. He returned with the same caution that he had used in his advance. Even more carefully, if possible, did he scrutinize the rocks and the creek ahead. He had already found life in the chasm, and he might find more.