we have come?"
Mukoki had gone a few steps ahead, and before Wabi answered he called softly to them from close up against the chasm wall. They hurried to him and found him standing beside the rift.
"Here!"
Wabi handed his rifle to Rod.
"I'm going up first," he announced. "If the coast is clear I'll whistle down."
For a few moments Mukoki and Rod could hear him as he crawled up the fissure. Then all was silent. A quarter of an hour passed, and a low whistle came to their ears. Another ten minutes and the three stood together at the top of the mountain, Rod and the wounded Mukoki breathing hard from their exertions.
For a time the three sat down in the snow and waited, watched, listened; and from Rod's heart there went up something that was almost a prayer, for it was snowing—snowing hard, and it seemed to him that the storm was something which God had specially directed should fall in their path that it might shield them and bring them safely home.
And when he rose to his feet Wabi was still silent, and the three gripped hands in mute thankfulness at their deliverance.
Still speechless, they turned instinctively for a moment back to the dark desolation beyond the chasm—the great, white wilderness in which they had passed so many adventurous yet happy weeks; and as they gazed into the chaos beyond the second mountain there came to them the lonely, wailing howl of a wolf.
"I wonder," said Wabi softly. "I wonder—if that—is Wolf?"
And then, Indian file, they trailed into the south.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SURPRISE AT THE POST
From the moment that the adventurers turned their backs upon the Woonga country Mukoki was in command. With the storm in their favor everything else now depended upon the craft of the old pathfinder. There was neither moon nor wind to guide them, and even Wabi felt that he was not competent to strike a straight trail in a strange country and a night storm. But Mukoki, still a savage in the ways of the wilderness, seemed possessed of that mysterious sixth sense which is known as the sense of orientation—that almost supernatural instinct which guides the carrier pigeon as straight as a die to its home-cote hundreds of miles away. Again and again during that thrilling night's flight Wabi or Rod would ask the Indian where Wabinosh House lay, and he would point out its direction to them without hesitation. And each time it seemed to the city youth that he pointed a different way, and it proved to him how easy it was to become hopelessly lost in the wilderness.
Not until midnight did they pause to rest. They had traveled slowly but steadily and Wabi figured that they had covered fifteen miles. Five miles behind them their trail was completely obliterated by the falling snow. Morning would betray to the Woongas no sign of the direction taken by the fugitives.
"They will believe that we have struck directly westward for the Post," said Wabi. "To-morrow night we'll be fifty miles apart."
During this stop a small fire was built behind a fallen log and the hunters refreshed themselves with a pot of strong coffee and what little remained of the rabbit and biscuits. The march was then resumed.
It seemed to Rod that they had climbed an interminable number of ridges and had picked their way through an interminable number of swampy bottoms between them, and he, even more than Mukoki, was relieved when they struck the easier traveling of open plains. In fact, Mukoki seemed scarcely to give a thought to his wound and Roderick was almost ready to drop in his tracks by the time a halt was called an hour before dawn. The old warrior was confident that they were now well out of danger and a rousing camp-fire was built in the shelter of a thick growth of spruce.
"Spruce partridge in mornin'," affirmed Mukoki. "Plenty here for breakfast."
"How do you know?" asked Rod, whose hunger was ravenous.
"Fine thick spruce, all in shelter of dip," explained the Indian. "Birds winter here."
Wabi had unpacked the furs, and the larger of these, including six lynx and three especially fine wolf skins, he divided into three piles.
"They'll make mighty comfortable beds if you keep close enough to the fire," he explained. "Get a few spruce boughs, Rod, and cover them over with one of the wolf skins. The two lynx pelts will make the warmest blankets you ever had."
Rod quickly availed himself of this idea, and within half an hour he was sleeping soundly. Mukoki and Wabigoon, more inured to the hardships of the wilderness, took only brief snatches of slumber, one or both awakening now and then to replenish the fire. As soon as it was light enough the two Indians went quietly out into the spruce with their guns, and their shots a little later awakened Rod. When they returned they brought three partridges with them.
"There are dozens of them among the spruce," said Wabi, "but just now we do not want to shoot any oftener than is absolutely necessary. Have you noticed our last night's trail?"
Rod rubbed his eyes, thus confessing that as yet he had not been out from between his furs.
"Well, if you go out there in the open for a hundred yards you won't find it," finished his comrade. "The snow has covered it completely."
Although they lacked everything but meat, this breakfast in the spruce thicket was one of the happiest of the entire trip, and when the three hunters were done each had eaten of his partridge until only the bones were left. There was now little cause for fear, for it was still snowing and their enemies were twenty-five miles to the north of them. This fact did not deter the adventurers from securing an early start, however, and they traveled southward through the storm until noon, when they built a camp of spruce and made preparations to rest until the following day.
"We must be somewhere near the Kenogami trail," Wabi remarked to Mukoki. "We may have passed it."
"No pass it," replied Mukoki. "She off there." He pointed to the south.
"You see the Kenogami trail is a sled trail leading from the little town of Nipigon, on the railroad, to Kenogami House, which is a Hudson Bay Post at the upper end of Long Lake," explained Wabi to his white companion. "The factor of Kenogami is a great friend of ours and we have visited back and forth often, but I've been over the Kenogami trail only once. Mukoki has traveled it many times."
Several rabbits were killed before dinner. No other hunting was done during the afternoon, most of which was passed in sleep by the exhausted adventurers. When Rod awoke he found that it had stopped snowing and was nearly dark.
Mukoki's wound was beginning to trouble him again, and it was decided that at least a part of the next day should be passed in camp, and that both Rod and Wabigoon should make an effort to kill some animal that would furnish them with the proper kind of oil to dress it with, the fat of almost any species of animal except mink or rabbit being valuable for this purpose. With dawn the two started out, while Mukoki, much against his will, was induced to remain in camp. A short distance away the hunters separated, Rod striking to the eastward and Wabi into the south.
For an hour Roderick continued without seeing game, though there were plenty of signs of deer and caribou about him. At last he determined to strike for a ridge a mile to the south, from the top of which he was more likely to get a shot than
