Usually an Indian hides his fears; he conceals them as a white man does his sins.  But to-night Mukoki’s experience had passed beyond the knowledge of his race, and he told of what had happened, trembling still, cringing when a great white rabbit darted close to the fire.  Rod and Wabi listened to him in mute astonishment.

“Could it have been a Woonga?” asked Wabi.

“No Woonga,” replied the old warrior quickly, shaking his head.  “Woonga no mak’ noise lak that!”

He drew away from the fire, wrapped himself in a blanket, and crept into the shelter that Rod and Wabigoon had built.  The two boys looked at each other in silence.

“Muky has certainly had some most extraordinary adventure,” said Wabi at last.  “I have never seen him like this before.  It is easy to guess the meaning of the shot.  Some of the Woongas may still be in the country, and one of them saw Mukoki, and fired at him.  But the scream!  What do you make of that?”

“Do you suppose,” whispered Rod, speaking close to his companion’s ear, “that Mukoki’s imagination helped him out to-night?” He paused for a moment as he saw the look of disapproval in Wabigoon’s eyes, and then went on.  “I don’t mean to hint that he stretched his story purposely.  He was standing on the mountain top.  Suddenly there came a flash of fire, the report of a rifle, and a bullet zipped close to his head.  And at that same instant, or a moment later—­well, you remember the scream of the lynx!”

“You believe that it might have been a lynx, startled by the shot, and sent screaming across the plain?”

“Yes.”

“Impossible.  At the sound of that shot a lynx would have remained as still as death!”

“Still there are always exceptions,” persisted the white youth.

“Not in the case of lynx,” declared Wabigoon.  “No animal made those cries.  Mukoki is as fearless as a lion.  The cry of a lynx would have stirred his blood with pleasure instead of fear.  Whatever the sounds were they turned Mukoki’s blood into water.  They made him a coward, and he ran, ran, mind you! until he got back to us!  Is that like Mukoki?  I tell you the cries—­”

“What?”

“Were something very unusual,” finished Wabigoon quietly, rising to his feet “Perhaps we will find out more to-morrow.  As it is, I believe we had better stand guard in camp to-night.  I will go to bed now and you can awaken me after a while.”

Wabigoon’s words and the strangeness of his manner put Rod ill at ease, despite his arguments of a few moments before, and no sooner did he find himself alone beside the fire than he began to be filled with an unpleasant premonition of lurking danger.  For a time he sat very still, trying to peer into the shadows beyond the fire and listening to the sounds that came to him from out of the night.  As he watched and listened his brain worked ceaselessly, conjuring picture after picture of what that danger might be, and at last he drew out of the firelight and concealed himself in the deep gloom of the bush.  From here he could see the camp, and at the same time was safe from a possible rifle shot.