“Perhaps he would go with us,” suggested Rod.

“No, he couldn’t leave the Post.  If he went Wabi would have to stay.”

Rod was counting on his fingers.

“That means six in our next expedition,—­Wabi, Mukoki, John Ball and myself, and you and Maballa.  Why, it’ll be a regular picnic party!”

Minnetaki’s eyes were brimming with fun.

“Do you know,” she said, “that Maballa thinks Mukoki is just about the nicest Indian that ever lived?  Oh, I’d be so glad if—­if—­”

She puckered her mouth into a round, red O, and left Rod to guess the rest.  It was not difficult for him to understand.

“So would I,” he cried.  Then he added,

“Muky is the best fellow on earth.”

“And Maballa is just as good,” said the girl loyally.

The boy held out his hand.

“Let’s shake on that, Minnetaki!  I’ll handle Mukoki, you take care of Maballa.  What a picnic this next trip will be!”

“And there’ll be lots and lots of adventures, won’t there?” asked the girl a little anxiously.

“Plenty of them.”  Rod became immediately serious.  “This will be the most important of all our trips, Minnetaki, that is, if John Ball lives.  I haven’t told the others, but I believe that great cavern holds something for us besides gold!”

The smile left the girl’s face.  Her eyes were soft and eager.

“You believe that—­Dolores—­”

“I don’t know what to believe.  But—­we’ll find something there!”

For an hour Rod and Minnetaki talked of John Ball and of the strange things he said in his delirium.  Then the girl rejoined Mrs. Drew and the princess mother, while Rod went in search of Mukoki and Wabigoon.  That night the big event happened.  George Newsome, the factor, gave a reluctant consent which meant that Wabi’s sister and Maballa would accompany the adventurers on their next journey into the untraveled solitudes of Hudson Bay.

For a week John Ball hovered between life and death.  After that his improvement was slow but sure, and each day added strength to his emaciated body and a new light to his eyes.  At the end of the second week there was no question but that he was slowly returning to sanity.  Gradually he came to know those who sat beside his bed, and whenever Rod visited him he insisted on holding the youth’s hand.  At first the sight of Minnetaki or her mother, or of Mrs. Drew, had a startling effect on him and in their presence he would moan ceaselessly the name Rod first heard in the cavern.  A little at a time the language of those about him came back to the old man, and bit by bit those who waited and listened and watched learned the story of John Ball.  Midsummer came before he could gather the scattered threads of his life in his memory, and even then there were breaks in this story which seemed but trivial things to John Ball, but which to the others meant the passing of forgotten years.