And each day thereafter the sun rose earlier, and the day was longer, and the air was warmer; and with the warmth there now came the sweet scents of the budding earth and the myriad sounds of the deep, unseen life of the forests, awakening from its long slumber in its bed of snow.  The moose-birds chirped their mating songs and flirted from morning till night in bough and air, and the jays and ravens fluffed themselves in the sun, and the snowbirds, little black and white beauties that were wont to whisk about like so many flashing gems, became fewer and fewer, until they were gone altogether.  The poplar buds swelled more and more in their joy, until they split like over-fat peas, and the partridges feasted upon them.

And Mother Bear came out of her winter den, accompanied by her little ones born two months before, and taught them how to pull down the slender saplings for these same buds; and the moose came down from the blizzardy tops of the great ridges, which are called mountains in the North, and where for good reasons they had passed the winter, followed by the wolves, who fed upon their weak and sick.  Everywhere there were the rushing torrents of melting snows, the crackle of crumbling ice, the dying frost-cries of rock and earth and tree, and each night the cold, pale glow of the Aurora Borealis crept farther and farther toward the Pole in fading glory.

It was spring, and at Wabinosh House it brought more joy than elsewhere, for there Roderick Drew joined his mother.  We have not time here to dwell on the things that happened at the old Hudson Bay Post during the ten days after their first happy reunion—­of the love that sprang up between Rod’s mother and Minnetaki, and the princess wife of George Newsome, the factor; of the departure of the soldiers whose task of running down Woonga ended with Rod’s desperate fight in the cabin, or of the preparations of the gold hunters themselves.

On a certain evening in April, Wabi, Mukoki and Rod had assembled in the latter’s room.  The next morning they were to start on their long and thrilling adventure into the far North, and on this last night they went carefully over their equipment and plans to see that nothing had been forgotten.  That night Rod slept little.  For the second time in his life the fever of adventure was running wild in his blood.  After the others had gone he studied the precious old map until his eyes grew dim; in the half slumber that came to him afterward his brain worked ceaselessly, and he saw visions of the romantic old cabin again, and the rotting buckskin bag filled with nuggets of gold on the table.