Chapter 6. Mukoki Disturbs The Ancient Skeletons

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_ CHAPTER VI. MUKOKI DISTURBS THE ANCIENT SKELETONS

Completely exhausted, every muscle in his aching body still seeming to strain with exertion, the night was one of restless and uncomfortable dreams for Roderick Drew. While Wabi and the old Indian, veterans in wilderness hardship, slept in peace and tranquillity, the city boy found himself in the most unusual and thrilling situations from which he would extricate himself with a grunt or sharp cry, several times sitting bolt upright in his bed of balsam until he realized where he was, and that his adventures were only those of dreamland.

From one of these dreams Rod had aroused himself into drowsy wakefulness. He fancied that he had heard steps. For the tenth time he raised himself upon an elbow, stretched, rubbed his eyes, glanced at the dark, inanimate forms of his sleeping companions, and snuggled down into his balsam boughs again. A few moments later he sat bolt upright. He could have sworn that he heard real steps this time--a soft cautious crunching in the snow very near his head. Breathlessly he listened. Not a sound broke the silence except the snapping of a dying ember in the fire. Another dream! Once more he settled back, drawing his blanket closely about him. Then, for a full breath, the very beating of his heart seemed to cease.

What was that!

He was awake now, wide awake, with every faculty in him striving to arrange itself. He had heard--a step! Slowly, very cautiously this time, he raised himself. There came distinctly to his ears a light crunching in the snow. It seemed back of the shelter--then was moving away, then stopped. The flickering light of the dying fire still played on the face of the great rock. Suddenly, at the very end of that rock, something moved.

Some object was creeping cautiously upon the sleeping camp!

For a moment his thrilling discovery froze the young hunter into inaction. But in a moment the whole situation flashed upon him. The Woongas had followed them! They were about to fall upon the helpless camp! Unexpectedly one of his hands came in contact with the barrel of Wabi's rifle. The touch of the cold steel aroused him. There was no time to awaken his companions. Even as he drew the gun to him he saw the object grow larger and larger at the end of the rock, until it stood crouching, as if about to spring.

One bated breath--a thunderous report--a snarling scream of pain, and the camp was awake!

"We're attacked!" cried Rod. "Quick--Wabi--Mukoki!"

The white boy was on his knees now, the smoking rifle still leveled toward the rocks. Out there, in the thick shadows beyond the fire, a body was groveling and kicking in death agonies. In another instant the gaunt form of the old warrior was beside Rod, his rifle at his shoulder, and over their heads reached Wabigoon's arm, the barrel of his heavy revolver glinting in the firelight.

For a full minute they crouched there, breathless, waiting.

"They've gone!" broke Wabi in a tense whisper.

"I got one of them!" replied Rod, his voice trembling with excitement.

Mukoki slipped back and burrowed a hole through the side of the shelter. He could see nothing. Slowly he slipped out, his rifle ready. The others could hear him as he went. Foot by foot the old warrior slunk along in the deep gloom toward the end of the rock. Now he was almost there, now--

The young hunters saw him suddenly straighten. There came to them a low chuckling grunt. He bent over, seized an object, and flung it in the light of the fire.

"Heap big Woonga! Kill nice fat lynx!"

With a wail, half feigned, half real, Rod flung himself back upon the balsam while Wabi set up a roar that made the night echo. Mukoki's face was creased in a broad grin.

"Heap big Woonga--heem!" he repeated, chuckling. "Nice fat lynx shot well in face. No look like bad man Woonga to Mukoki!"

When Rod finally emerged from his den to join the others his face was flushed and wore what Wabi described as a "sheepish grin."

"It's all right for you fellows to make fun of me," he declared. "But what if they had been Woongas? By George, if we're ever attacked again I won't do a thing. I'll let you fellows fight 'em off!"

In spite of the general merriment at his expense, Rod was immensely proud of his first lynx. It was an enormous creature of its kind, drawn by hunger to the scraps of the camp-fire feast; and it was this animal, as it cautiously inspected the camp, that the young hunter had heard crunching in the snow. Wolf, whose instinct had told him what a mix-up would mean, had slunk into his shelter without betraying his whereabouts to this arch-enemy of his tribe.

With the craft of his race, Mukoki was skinning the animal while it was still warm.

"You go back bed," he said to his companions. "I build big fire again--then sleep."

The excitement of his adventure at least freed Rod from the unpleasantness of further dreams, and it was late the following morning before he awoke again. He was astonished to find that a beautiful sun was shining. Wabi and the old Indian were already outside preparing breakfast, and the cheerful whistling of the former assured Rod that there was now little to be feared from the Woongas. Without lingering to take a beauty nap he joined them.

Everywhere about them lay white winter. The rocks, the trees, and the mountain behind them were covered with two feet of snow and upon it the sun shone with dazzling brilliancy. But it was not until Rod looked into the north that he saw the wilderness in all of its grandeur. The camp had been made at the extreme point of the ridge, and stretching away under his eyes, mile after mile, was the vast white desolation that reached to Hudson Bay. In speechless wonder he gazed down upon the unblazed forests, saw plains and hills unfold themselves as his vision gained distance, followed a river until it was lost in the bewildering picture, and let his eyes rest here and there upon the glistening, snow-smothered bosoms of lakes, rimmed in by walls of black forest. This was not the wilderness as he had expected it to be, nor as he had often read of it in books. It was beautiful! It was magnificent! His heart throbbed with pleasure as he gazed down on it, the blood rose to his face in an excited flush, and he seemed hardly to breathe in his tense interest.

Mukoki had come up beside him softly, and spoke in his low guttural voice.

"Twent' t'ousand moose down there--twent' t'ousand caribou-oo! No man--no house--more twent' t'ousand miles!"

Roderick, even trembling in his new emotion, looked into the old warrior's face. In Mukoki's eyes there was a curious, thrilling gleam. He stared straight out into the unending distance as though his keen vision would penetrate far beyond the last of that visible desolation--on and on, even to the grim and uttermost fastnesses of Hudson Bay. Wabi came up and placed his hand on Rod's shoulder.

"Muky was born off there," he said. "Away beyond where we can see. Those were his hunting-grounds when a boy. See that mountain yonder? You might take it for a cloud. It's thirty miles from here! And that lake down there--you might think a rifle-shot would reach it--is five miles away! If a moose or a caribou or a wolf should cross it how you could see him."

For a few moments longer the three stood silent, then Wabi and the old Indian returned to the fire to finish the preparation of breakfast, leaving Rod alone in his enchantment. What unsolved mysteries, what unwritten tragedies, what romance, what treasure of gold that vast North must hold! For a thousand, perhaps a million centuries, it had lain thus undisturbed in the embrace of nature; few white men had broken its solitudes, and the wild things still lived there as they had lived in the winters of ages and ages ago.

The call to breakfast came almost as an unpleasant interruption to Rod. But it did not shock his appetite as it had his romantic fancies, and he performed his part at the morning meal with considerable credit. Wabi and Mukoki had already decided that they would not take up the trail again that day but would remain in their present camp until the following morning. There were several reasons for this delay.

"We can't travel without snow-shoes now," explained Wabi to Rod, "and we've got to take a day off to teach you how to use them. Then, all the wild things are lying low. Moose, deer, caribou, and especially wolves and fur animals, won't begin traveling much until this afternoon and to-night, and if we took up the trail now we would have no way of telling what kind of a game country we were in. And that is the important thing just now. If we strike a first-rate game country during the next couple days we'll stop and build our winter camp."

"Then you believe we are far enough away from the Woongas?" asked Rod.

Mukoki grunted.

"No believe Woongas come over mountain. Heap good game country back there. They stay."

During the meal the white boy asked a hundred questions about the vast wilderness which lay stretched out before them in a great panorama, and in which they were soon to bury themselves, and every answer added to his enthusiasm. Immediately after they had finished eating Rod expressed a desire to begin his study in snow-shoeing, and for an hour after that Wabi and Mukoki piloted him back and forth along the ridge, instructing him in this and in that, applauding when he made an especially good dash and enjoying themselves immensely when he took one of his frequent tumbles into the snow. By noon Rod secretly believed that he was becoming quite an adept.

Although the day in camp was an exceedingly pleasant one for Rod, he could not but observe that at times something seemed to be troubling Wabi. Twice he discovered the Indian youth alone within the shelter sitting in silent and morose dejection, and finally he insisted upon an explanation.

"I want you to tell me what the trouble is, Wabi," he demanded. "What has gone wrong?"

Wabi jumped to his feet with a little laugh.

"Did you ever have a dream that bothered you, Rod?" he asked. "Well, I had one last night, and since then--somehow--I can't keep from worrying about the people back at the Post, and especially about Minnetaki. It's all--what do you call it--bosh? Listen! Wasn't that Mukoki's whistle?"

As he paused Mukoki came running around the end of the rock.

"See fun!" he cried softly. "Quick--see heem quick!"

He turned and darted toward the precipitous edge of the ridge, closely followed by the two boys.

"Cari-boo-oo!" he whispered excitedly as they came up beside him. "Cari-boo-oo--making big play!"

He pointed down into the snowy wilderness. Three-quarters of a mile away, though to Rod apparently not more than a third of that distance from where they stood, half a dozen animals were disporting themselves in a singular fashion in a meadow-like opening between the mountain and a range of forest. It was Rod's first real glimpse of that wonderful animal of the North of which he had read so much, the caribou--commonly known beyond the Sixtieth Degree as the reindeer; and at this moment those below him were indulging in the queer play known in the Hudson Bay regions as the "caribou dance."

"What's the matter with them?" he asked, his voice quivering with excitement. "What--"

"Making big fun!" chuckled Mukoki, drawing the boy closer to the rock that concealed them.

Wabi had thrust a finger in his mouth and now held it above his head, the Indian's truest guide for discovering the direction of the wind. The lee side of his finger remained cold and damp, while that side upon which the breeze fell was quickly dried.

"The wind is toward us, Muky," he announced. "There's a fine chance for a shot. You go! Rod and I will stay here and watch you."

Roderick heard--knew that Mukoki was creeping back to the camp for his rifle, but not for an instant did his spellbound eyes leave the spectacle below him. Two other animals had joined those in the open. He could see the sun glistening on their long antlers as they tossed their heads in their amazing antics. Now three or four of them would dash away with the speed of the wind, as though the deadliest of enemies were close behind them. Two or three hundred yards away they would stop with equal suddenness, whirl about in a circle, as though flight were interrupted on all sides of them, then tear back with lightning speed to rejoin the herd. In twos and threes and fours they performed these evolutions again and again. But there was another antic that held Rod's eyes, and if it had not been so new and wonderful to him he would have laughed, as Wabi was doing--silently--behind him. From out of the herd would suddenly dash one of the agile creatures, whirl about, jump and kick, and finally bounce up and down on all four feet, as though performing a comedy sketch in pantomime for the amusement of its companions; and when this was done it would start out in another mad flight, with others of the herd at its heels.

"They are the funniest, swiftest, and shrewdest animals in the North," said Wabi. "They can smell you over a mountain if the wind is right, and hear you for half a mile. Look!"

He pointed downward over Rod's shoulder. Mukoki had already reached the base of the ridge and was stealing straight out in the direction of the caribou. Rod gave a surprised gasp.

"Great Scott! They'll see him, won't they?" he cried.

"Not if Mukoki knows himself," smiled the Indian youth. "Remember that we are looking down on things. Everything seems clear and open to us, while in reality it's quite thick down there. I'll bet Muky can't see one hundred yards ahead of him. He has got his bearings and will go as straight as though he was on a blazed trail; but he won't see the caribou until he conies to the edge of the open."

Each minute now added to Rod's excitement. Each of those minutes brought the old warrior nearer his game. Seldom, thought Rod, had such a scene been unfolded to the eyes of a white boy. The complete picture--the playful rompings of the dumb children of the wilderness; the stealthy approach of the old Indian; every rock, every tree that was to play its part--all were revealed to their eyes. Not a phase in this drama in wild life escaped them. Five minutes, ten, fifteen passed. They could see Mukoki as he stopped and lifted a hand to test the wind. Then he crouched, advancing foot by foot, yard by yard, so slowly that he seemed to be on his hands and knees.

"He can hear them, but he can't see them!" breathed Wabigoon. "See! He places his ear to the ground! Now he has got his bearings again--as straight as a die! Good old Muky!"

The old Indian crept on. In his excitement Rod clenched his hands and he seemed to live without breathing. Would Mukoki never shoot? Would he _never_ shoot? He seemed now to be within a stone's throw of the herd.

"How far, Wabi?"

"Four hundred yards, perhaps five," replied the Indian. "It's a long shot! He can't see them yet."

Rod gripped his companion's arm.

Mukoki had stopped. Down and down he slunk, until he became only a blot in the snow.

"Now!"

There came a moment of startled silence. In the midst of their play the animals in the open stood for a single instant paralyzed by a knowledge of impending danger, and in that instant there came to the young hunters the report of Mukoki's rifle.

"No good!" cried Wabi.

In his excitement he leaped to his feet. The caribou had turned and the whole eight of them were racing across the open. Another shot, and another--three in quick succession, and one of the fleeing animals fell, scrambled to its knees--and plunged on again! A fifth shot--the last in Mukoki's rifle! Again the wounded animal fell, struggled to its knees--to its forefeet--and fell again.

"Good work! Five hundred yards if it was a foot!" exclaimed Wabigoon with a relieved laugh. "Fresh steak for supper, Rod!"

Mukoki came out into the open, reloading his rifle. Quickly he moved across the wilderness playground, now crimson with blood, unsheathed his knife, and dropped upon his knees close to the throat of the slain animal.

"I'll go down and give him a little help, Rod," said Wabi. "Your legs are pretty sore, and it's a hard climb down there; so if you will keep up the fire, Mukoki and I will bring back the meat."

During the next hour Rod busied himself with collecting firewood for the night and in practising with his snow-shoes. He was astonished to find how swiftly and easily he could travel in them, and was satisfied that he could make twenty miles a day even as a tenderfoot.

Left to his own thoughts he found his mind recurring once more to the Woongas and Minnetaki. Why was Wabi worried? Inwardly he did not believe that it was a dream alone that was troubling him. There was still some cause for fear. Of that he was certain. And why would not the Woongas penetrate beyond this mountain? He had asked himself this question a score of times during the last twenty-four hours, in spite of the fact that both Mukoki and Wabigoon were quite satisfied that they were well out of the Woonga territory.

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.

[Illustration: "Knife--fight--heem killed!"] _

Read next: Chapter 7. Roderick Discovers The Buckskin Bag

Read previous: Chapter 5. Mysterious Shots In The Wilderness

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