第 8 页

It was growing dusk when Wabi and the old Indian returned with the meat of the caribou. No time was lost in preparing supper, for the hunters had decided that the next day's trail would begin with dawn and probably end with darkness, which meant that they would require all the rest they could get before then. They were all eager to begin the winter's hunt. That day Mukoki's eyes had glistened at each fresh track he encountered. Wabi and Rod were filled with enthusiasm. Even Wolf, now and then stretching his gaunt self, would nose the air with eager suspicion, as if longing for the excitement of the tragedies in which he was to play such an important part.

"If you can stand it," said Wabi, nodding at Rod over his caribou steak, "we won't lose a minute from now on. Over that country we ought to make twenty-five or thirty miles to-morrow. We may strike our hunting-ground by noon, or it may take us two or three days; but in either event we haven't any time to waste. Hurrah for the big camp, I say—and our fun begins!"

It seemed to Rod as though he had hardly fallen asleep that night when somebody began tumbling him about in his bed of balsam. Opening his eyes he beheld Wabi's laughing face, illuminated in the glow of a roaring fire.

"Time's up!" he called cheerily. "Hustle out, Rod. Breakfast is sizzling hot, everything is packed, and here you are still dreaming of—what?"

"Minnetaki!" shot back Rod with unblushing honesty.

In another minute he was outside, straightening his disheveled garments and smoothing his tousled hair. It was still very dark, but Rod assured himself by his watch that it was nearly four o'clock. Mukoki had already placed their breakfast on a flat rock beside the fire and, according to Wabigoon's previous scheme, no time was lost in disposing of it.

Dawn was just breaking when the little cavalcade of adventurers set out from the camp. More keenly than ever Rod now felt the loss of his rifle. They were about to enter upon a hunter's paradise—and he had no gun! His disappointment was acute and he could not repress a confession of his feelings to Wabi. The Indian youth at once suggested a happy remedy. They would take turns in using his gun, Rod to have it one day and he the next; and Wabi's heavy revolver would also change hands, so that the one who did not possess the rifle would be armed with the smaller weapon. This solution of the difficulty lifted a dampening burden from Rod's heart, and when the little party began its descent into the wilderness regions under the mountain the city lad carried the rifle, for Wabi insisted that he have the first "turn."

Once free of the rock-strewn ridge the two boys joined forces in pulling the toboggan while Mukoki struck out a trail ahead of them. As it became lighter Rod found his eyes glued with keen interest to Mukoki's snow-shoes, and for the first time in his life he realized what it really meant to "make a trail." The old Indian was the most famous trailmaker as well as the keenest trailer of his tribe, and in the comparatively open bottoms through which they were now traveling he was in his element. His strides were enormous, and with each stride he threw up showers of snow, leaving a broad level path behind him in which the snow was packed by his own weight, so that when Wabi and Rod came to follow him they were not impeded by sinking into a soft surface.

Half a mile from the mountain Mukoki stopped and waited for the others to come up to him.

"Moose!" he called, pointing at a curious track in the snow.

Rod leaned eagerly over the track.

"The snow is still crumbling and falling where he stepped," said Wabi. "Watch that little chunk, Rod. See—it's slipping—down—down—there! It was an old bull—a big fellow—and he passed here less than an hour ago."

Signs of the night carnival of the wild things now became more and more frequent as the hunters advanced. They crossed and recrossed the trail of a fox; and farther on they discovered where this little pirate of darkness had slaughtered a big white rabbit. The snow was covered with blood and hair and part of the carcass remained uneaten. Again Wabi forgot his determination to waste no time and paused to investigate.

"Now, if we only knew what kind of a fox he was!" he exclaimed to Rod. "But we don't. All we know is that he's a fox. And all fox tracks are alike, no matter what kind of a fox makes them. If there was only some difference our fortunes would be made!"

"How?" asked Rod.

Mukoki chuckled as if the mere thought of such a possibility filled him with glee.

"Well, that fellow may be an ordinary red fox," explained the Indian youth. "If so, he is only worth from ten to twenty dollars; or he may be a black fox, worth fifty or sixty; or what we call a 'cross'—a mixture of silver and black—worth from seventy-five to a hundred. Or—"

"Heap big silver!" interrupted Mukoki with another chuckle.

"Yes, or a silver," finished Wabi. "A poor silver is worth two hundred dollars, and a good one from five hundred to a thousand! Now do you see why we would like to have a difference in the tracks? If that was a silver, a black or a 'cross,' we'd follow him; but in all probability he is red."

Every hour added to Rod's knowledge of the wilderness and its people. For the first time in his life he saw the big dog-like tracks made by wolves, the dainty hoof-prints of the red deer and the spreading imprints of a traveling lynx; he pictured the hugeness of the moose that made a track as big as his head, discovered how to tell the difference between the hoof-print of a small moose and a big caribou, and in almost every mile learned something new.

Half a dozen times during the morning the hunters stopped to rest. By noon Wabi figured that they had traveled twenty miles, and, although very tired, Rod declared that he was still "game for another ten." After dinner the aspect of the country changed. The river which they had been following became narrower and was so swift in places that it rushed tumultuously between its frozen edges. Forest-clad hills, huge boulders and masses of rock now began to mingle again with the bottoms, which in this country are known as plains. Every mile added to the roughness and picturesque grandeur of the country. A few miles to the east rose another range of wild and rugged hills; small lakes became more and more numerous, and everywhere the hunters crossed and recrossed frozen creeks.

And each step they took now added to the enthusiasm of Wabi and his companions. Evidences of game and fur animals were plenty. A thousand ideal locations for a winter camp were about them, and their progress became slow and studied.

A gently sloping hill of considerable height now lay in their path and Mukoki led the ascent. At the top the three paused in joyful astonishment. At their feet lay a "dip," or hollow, a dozen acres in extent, and in the center of this dip was a tiny lake partly surrounded by a mixed forest of cedar, balsam and birch that swept back over the hill, and partly inclosed by a meadow-like opening. One might have traveled through the country a thousand times without discovering this bit of wilderness paradise hidden in a hilltop. Without speaking Mukoki threw off his heavy pack. Wabi unbuckled his harness and relieved his shoulders of their burden. Rod, following their example, dropped his small pack beside that of the old Indian, and Wolf, straining at his babeesh thong, gazed with eager eyes into the hollow as though he, too, knew that it was to be their winter home.

Wabi broke the silence.

"How is that, Muky?" he asked.

Mukoki chuckled with unbounded satisfaction.

"Ver' fine. No get bad wind—never see smoke—plenty wood—plenty water."

Relieved of their burdens, and leaving Wolf tied to the toboggan, the hunters made their way down to the lake. Hardly had they reached its edge when Wabi halted with a startled exclamation and pointed into the forest on the opposite side.

"Look at that!"

A hundred yards away, almost concealed among the trees, was a cabin. Even from where they stood they could see that it was deserted. Snow was drifted high about it. No chimney surmounted its roof. Nowhere was there a sign of life.

Slowly the hunters approached. It was evident that the cabin was very old. The logs of which it was built were beginning to decay. A mass of saplings had taken root upon its roof, and everything about it gave evidence that it had been erected many years before. The door, made of split timber and opening toward the lake, was closed; the one window, also opening upon the lake, was tightly barred with lengths of sapling.

Mukoki tried the door, but it resisted his efforts. Evidently it was strongly barred from within.

Curiosity now gave place to astonishment.

How could the door be locked within, and the window barred from within, without there being somebody inside?

For a few moments the three stood speechless, listening.

"Looks queer, doesn't it?" spoke Wabi softly.

Mukoki had dropped on his knees beside the door. He could hear no sound. Then he kicked off his snow-shoes, gripped his belt-ax and stepped to the window.

A dozen blows and one of the bars fell. The old Indian sniffed suspiciously, his ear close to the opening. Damp, stifling air greeted his nostrils, but still there was no sound. One after another he knocked off the remaining bars and thrust his head and shoulders inside. Gradually his eyes became accustomed to the darkness and he pulled himself in.

Half-way—and he stopped.

"Go on, Muky," urged Wabi, who was pressing close behind.

There came no answer from the old Indian. For a full minute he remained poised there, as motionless as a stone, as silent as death.

Then, very slowly—inch by inch, as though afraid of awakening a sleeping person, he lowered himself to the ground. When he turned toward the young hunters it was with an expression that Rod had never seen upon Mukoki's face before.

"What is it, Mukoki?"

The old Indian gasped, as if for fresh air.

"Cabin—she filled with twent' t'ousand dead men!" he replied.

CHAPTER VII

RODERICK DISCOVERS THE BUCKSKIN BAG

For one long breath Rod and Wabi stared at their companion, only half believing, yet startled by the strange look in the old warrior's face.

"Twent' t'ousand dead men!" he repeated. As he raised his hand, partly to give emphasis and partly to brush the cobwebs from his face, the boys saw it trembling in a way that even Wabi had never witnessed before.

"Ugh!"

In another instant Wabi was at the window, head and shoulders in, as Mukoki had been before him. After a little he pulled himself back and as he glanced at Rod he laughed in an odd thrilling way, as though he had been startled, but not so much so as Mukoki, who had prepared him for the sight which had struck his own vision with the unexpectedness of a shot in the back.

"Take a look, Rod!"

With his breath coming in little uneasy jerks Rod approached the black aperture. A queer sensation seized upon him—a palpitation, not of fear, but of something; a very unpleasant feeling that seemed to choke his breath, and made him wish that he had not been asked to peer into that mysterious darkness. Slowly he thrust his head through the hole. It was as black as night inside. But gradually the darkness seemed to be dispelled. He saw, in a little while, the opposite wall of the cabin. A table outlined itself in deep shadows, and near the table there was a pile of something that he could not name; and tumbled over that was a chair, with an object that might have been an old rag half covering it.

His eyes traveled nearer. Outside Wabi and Mukoki heard a startled, partly suppressed cry. The boy's hands gripped the sides of the window. Fascinated, he stared down upon an object almost within arm's reach of him.

There, leaning against the cabin wall, was what half a century or more ago had been a living man! Now it was a mere skeleton, a grotesque, terrible-looking object, its empty eye-sockets gleaming dully with the light from the window, its grinning mouth, distorted into ghostly life by the pallid mixture of light and gloom, turned full up at him!

Rod fell back, trembling and white.

"I only saw one," he gasped, remembering Mukoki's excited estimate.

Wabi, who had regained his composure, laughed as he struck him two or three playful blows on the back. Mukoki only grunted.

"You didn't look long enough, Rod!" he cried banteringly. "He got on your nerves too quick. I don't blame you, though. By George, I'll bet the shivers went up Muky's back when he first saw 'em! I'm going in to open the door."

Without trepidation the young Indian crawled through the window. Rod, whose nervousness was quickly dispelled, made haste to follow him, while Mukoki again threw his weight against the door. A few blows of Wabi's belt-ax and the door shot inward so suddenly that the old Indian went sprawling after it upon all fours.

A flood of light filled the interior of the cabin. Instinctively Rod's eyes sought the skeleton against the wall. It was leaning as if, many years before, a man had died there in a posture of sleep. Quite near this ghastly tenant of the cabin, stretched at full length upon the log floor, was a second skeleton, and near the overturned chair was a small cluttered heap of bones which were evidently those of some animal. Rod and Wabi drew nearer the skeleton against the wall and were bent upon making a closer examination when an exclamation from Mukoki attracted their attention to the old pathfinder. He was upon his knees beside the second skeleton, and as the boys approached he lifted eyes to them that were filled with unbounded amazement, at the same time pointing a long forefinger to come object among the bones.

"Knife—fight—heem killed!"

Plunged to the hilt in what had once been the breast of a living being, the boys saw a long, heavy-bladed knife, its handle rotting with age, its edges eaten by rust—but still erect, held there by the murderous road its owner had cleft for it through the flesh and bone of his victim.

Rod, who had fallen upon his knees, gazed up blankly; his jaw dropped, and he asked the first question that popped into his head.

"Who—did it?"

Mukoki chuckled, almost gleefully, and nodded toward the gruesome thing reclining against the wall.

"Heem!"

Moved by a common instinct the three drew near the other skeleton. One of its long arms was resting across what had once been a pail, but which, long since, had sunk into total collapse between its hoops. The finger-bones of this arm were still tightly shut, clutching between them a roll of something that looked like birch-bark. The remaining arm had fallen close to the skeleton's side, and it was on this side that Mukoki's critical eyes searched most carefully, his curiosity being almost immediately satisfied by the discovery of a short, slant-wise cut in one of the ribs.