All this Rod saw in less than a breath, and he drew back, shivering in every fiber of his body.  But Wabigoon did not move.  For several minutes the Indian youth stood looking down upon the wonderful force at play below him, his body as motionless as though hewn out of stone, the wild blood in his veins leaping in response to the tumult and thunder of the magnificent spectacle deep down in the chasm.  When he turned to Rod his lips made no sound, but his eyes glowed with that half-slumbering fire which came only when the red blood of the princess mother gained ascendency, and the wild in him called out greeting to the savage in nature.  It is not music, or fine talk, or artificial wonders that waken a thrill deep down in the Indian soul, it is the great mountain, the vast plain, the roaring cataract!  And so it was with Wabigoon.

They went on, now, with the canoe upon their shoulders, and hugging close to the mountain wall.  Slowly, avoiding every stone and stick that might cause one of them to stumble, they passed along the perilously narrow ledge, and did not rest again until they had come in safety to the broader trail leading up the mountain.  An hour later Mukoki met them on his return for the remainder of their supplies.  Shortly after this they reached the small plateau where they had camped during the previous winter, and lowered their canoe close to the old balsam shelter.

Everything was as they had left it.  Neither snow nor storm had destroyed their lodging of boughs.  There were the charred remains of their fire, the bones of the huge lynx which Roderick had thought was an attacking Woonga, and had killed; and beside the shelter was a stake driven into the ground, the stake to which they had fastened their faithful comrade of many an adventure, the tame wolf.

To this stake went Wabigoon, speaking no word.  He sat down close beside it, with his arm resting upon it, and when he looked up at Rod there was an expression in his face which spoke more than words.

“Poor old Wolf!”

Rod turned and walked to the edge of the plateau, something hot and uncomfortable filling his eyes.  Below him, as far as he could see, there stretched the vast, mysterious wilderness that reached to Hudson Bay.  And somewhere out there in that limitless space was Wolf.

As he looked, the hot film clouding his vision, he thought of the old tragedy in Mukoki’s life, and of how Wolf had helped him to avenge himself.  In his imagination he went back to that terrible day many, many years ago, when Mukoki, happy in the strength of his youth, found his young wife and child dead upon the trail, killed by wolves; he thought of the story that Wabi had told him of the madness that came to the young warrior, of how year after year he followed the trail of wolves, wreaking his vengeance on their breed.  And last he thought of Wolf—­how Mukoki and Wabigoon had found the whelp in one of their traps; how they tamed him, grew to love him, and taught him to decoy other wolves to their riffes.  Wolf had been their comrade of a few months before; fearless, faithful, until at last, escaping from the final murderous assault of the Woongas, he had fled into the forests, while his human friends fought their way back to civilization.