“And the chief told his people this,” finished Wabi, “and from that hour there was no more thievery in the land.  And because the Great Spirit came in the form he did the rabbit is the good luck animal of the Crees and Chippewayans of the far North, and wherever the snows fall deep, men set their traps side by side to this day, and do not rob.”

Rod had listened with glowing eyes.

“It’s glorious!” he repeated.  “It’s glorious, if it’s true!”

“It is true,” said Wabi.  “In all this great country between here and the Barren Lands, where the musk-ox lives, there is not one Indian in a hundred who would steal another Indian’s trap, or the game in it.  It is one of the understood laws of the North that every hunter shall have his ‘trap line,’ or ‘run,’ and it is not courtesy for another trapper to encroach upon it; but if he should, and he should lay a trap close beside another’s, it would not be wrong, for the law of the Great Spirit is greater than the law of man.  Why, last winter even the outlaw Woongas made no effort to steal our traps, though they thirsted for our lives!”

“Mukoki,” said Rod, rising, “I want to shake hands with you before I go to bed.  I’m learning—­fast.  I wish I were half Indian!”

The next morning the journey up the Ombabika was resumed, and a little more of anxiety was now mingled with the enthusiasm of the adventurers.  For no one of them could relieve himself of the possible significance of the gold bullet, the fear that their treasure had been discovered by another.  Wabi regained his confidence first.

“I don’t believe it!” he exclaimed at last.  Without questioning, the others knew to what he referred.  “I don’t believe that our gold has been found.  It is in the heart of the wildest country on the continent, and surely if such a rich find had been made we would have heard something about it at Wabinosh House or Kenegami, which are the nearest points of supply.”

“Or, if it was found, the discoverer is dead,” added Rod.

“Yes.”

In the stern, Mukoki nodded and grunted his conviction.

“Dead,” he repeated.

The Ombabika had now become narrow and violent.  Against its swift current the canoe made but little headway, and at noon Mukoki announced that the river journey was at an end.  For a few moments Rod did not recognize where they had landed.  Then he gave a sudden cry of glad surprise.

“Why, this is where we had supper that night after our terrible adventure on the river last winter,” he exclaimed.

From far off there came faintly to his ears a low, rumbling thunder.

“Listen!  That’s the river rushing through the break in the mountain where we walked the edge of the precipice!”

Wabi shrugged his shoulders at the memory of that fearful night and its desperate race to escape from the Woonga country.

“We’ve got to do the same thing again, only this time it will be in daylight.”