“Long portage,” said Mukoki.  “Six mile.  Carry everything.”

“Until we reach the little creek in the plains beyond the mountain, where you shot the caribou?” asked Rod.

“Yes,” replied Wabigoon.  “That little creek will now be a pretty husky stream, and by hard work we can paddle up it until we come within about eight miles of our old camp at the head of the chasm, where we found the skeletons and the map.”

“And from that point we shall have to carry our canoe and supplies to the creek in the chasm,” finished Rod.  “And then—­hurrah for the gold!”

“Mak’ old camp on mountain by night,” said Mukoki.

Wabi broke into a happy laugh and thumped Rod on the back.

“Remember the big lynx you shot, Rod, and thought it was a Woonga, and had us all frightened out of our wits?” he cried.

Rod colored at the memory of his funny adventure, which was thrilling enough at the time, and began assisting Mukoki in unloading the canoe.  Two hours were taken for dinner and rest, and then the young hunters shouldered their canoe while Mukoki hurried on ahead of them, weighted with a half of their supplies.  Every step now brought the thunder of the torrent rushing through the mountain more clearly to their ears, and they had not progressed more than a mile when they were compelled to shout to make each other hear.  On their right the wall of the mountain closed in rapidly, and as they stumbled with their burden over a mass of huge boulders the two boys saw just ahead of them the narrow trail at the edge of the precipice.

At its beginning they rested their canoe.  On one side of them, a dozen yards away, the face of the mountain rose sheer above them for a thousand feet; on the other, scarce that distance from where they stood, was the roaring chasm.  And ahead of them the mountain wall and the edge of the precipice came nearer and nearer, until there was no more than a six-foot ledge to walk upon.  Rod’s face turned strangely white as he realized, for the first time, the terrible chances they had taken on that black, eventful night of a few months ago; and for a time Wabi stood silent, his face as hard-set as a rock.  Up out of the chasm there came a deafening thunder of raging waters, like the hollow explosions of great guns echoing and reechoing in subterranean caverns.

“Let’s take a look!” shouted Wabi close up to his companion’s ear.

He went to the edge of the precipice, and Rod forced himself to follow, though there was in him a powerful inclination to hug close to the mountain wall.  For half a minute he stood fascinated, terror-stricken, and yet in those thirty seconds he saw that which would remain with him for a lifetime.  Five hundred feet below him the over-running floods of spring were caught between the ragged edges of the two chasm walls, beating themselves in their fury to the whiteness of milk froth, until it seemed as though the earth itself must tremble under their mad rush.  Now and then through the twisting foam there shot the black crests of great rocks, as though huge monsters of some kind were at play, whipping the torrent into greater fury, and bellowing forth thunderous voices when they rose triumphant for an instant above the sweep of the flood.