In the direction from which the alarm came there stretched a small lake, and on its farther edge, a quarter of a mile away, there suddenly darted out from the dense rim of balsam forest a jumble of dogs and sledge and man.  For a few moments the mass of animals seemed entangled in some kind of wreck or engaged in one of those fierce battles in which the half-wild sledge-dogs of the North frequently engage, even on the trail.  Then there came the sharp, commanding cries of a human voice, the cracking of a whip, the yelping of the huskies, and the disordered team straightened itself and came like a yellowish-gray streak across the smooth surface of the lake.  Close beside the sledge ran the man.  He was tall, and thin, and even at that distance one would have recognized him as an Indian.  Hardly had the team and its wild-looking driver progressed a quarter of the distance across the lake when there came a shout farther back, and a second sledge burst into view from out of the thick forest.  Beside this sledge, too, a driver was running with desperate speed.

The leader now leaped upon his sledge, his voice rising in sharp cries of exhortation, his whip whirling and cracking over the backs of his dogs.  The second driver still ran, and thus gained upon the team ahead, so that when they came to the opposite side of the lake, where the wolf had sent out the warning cry to his people, the twelve dogs of the two teams were almost abreast.

Quickly there came a slackening in the pace set by the leading dog of each team, and half a minute later the sledges stopped.  The dogs flung themselves down in their harness, panting, with gaping jaws, the snow reddening under their bleeding feet.  The men, too, showed signs of terrible strain.  The elder of these, as we have said, was an Indian, pure breed of the great Northern wilderness.  His companion was a youth who had not yet reached his twenties, slender, but with the strength and agility of an animal in his limbs, his handsome face bronzed by the free life of the forest, and in his veins a plentiful strain of that blood which made his comrade kin.

In those two we have again met our old friends Mukoki and Wabigoon:  Mukoki, the faithful old warrior and pathfinder, and Wabigoon, the adventurous half-Indian son of the factor of Wabinosh House.  Both were at the height of some great excitement.  For a few moments, while gaining breath, they gazed silently into each other’s face.

“I’m afraid—­we can’t—­catch them, Muky,” panted the younger.  “What do you think—­”

He stopped, for Mukoki had thrown himself on his knees in the snow a dozen feet in front of the teams.  From that point there ran straight ahead of them the trail of the dog mail.  For perhaps a full minute he examined the imprints of the dogs’ feet and the smooth path made by the sledge.  Then he looked up, and with one of those inimitable chuckles which meant so much when coming from him, he said: