Wabi and Mukoki had seen the desperate leap and the young Indian was beside the pool before Rod had recovered from his horrified astonishment.  For centuries the water of the chasm stream had been tumbling into this pool wearing it deeper and deeper each year, until the water in it was over a man’s head.  In width it was not more than a dozen feet.

“Watch for him!  He’ll drown if we don’t get him out,” shouted Wabi.

Rod leaped to the edge of the pool, with Mukoki between him and Wabigoon.  Ready to spring into the cold depths at the first sign of the old man’s gray head or struggling arms the three stood with every muscle ready for action.  A second, two seconds, five seconds passed, and there was no sign of him.  Rod’s heart began to beat with drum-like fierceness.  Ten seconds!  A quarter of a minute!  He looked at Wabigoon.  The young Indian had thrown off his caribou-skin coat; his eyes, as he turned them for a moment toward Rod, flashed back the white youth’s fear.

“I’m going to dive for him!”

In another instant he had plunged head foremost into the pool.  Mukoki’s coat fell to the ground.  He crouched forward until it seemed he must topple from the stone upon which he stood.  Another fifteen seconds and Wabigoon’s head appeared above the water, and the old warrior gave a shout.

“Me come!”

He shot out and disappeared in a huge splash close to Wabi.  Rod stood transfixed, filled with a fear that was growing in him at every breath he drew.  He saw the convulsions of the water made by the two Indians, who were groping about below the surface.  Wabigoon came up again for breath, then Mukoki.  It seemed to him that an age had passed, and he felt no hope.  John Ball was dead!

Not for a moment now did he doubt the identity of the mad hunter.  The strange, wistful light that had replaced the glare in the old man’s eyes when he heard his own name called to him had spoken more than words.  It was John Ball!  And he was dead!  For a third time, a fourth, and a fifth Mukoki and Wabigoon came up for air, and the fifth time they dragged themselves out upon the rocks that edged the pool.  Mukoki spoke no word but ran back to the camp and threw a great armful of dry fuel upon the fire.  Wabigoon still remained at the edge of the pool, dripping and shivering.  His hands were clenched, and Rod could see that they were filled with sand and gravel.  Mechanically the Indian opened his fingers and looked at what he had unconsciously brought up from under the fall.

For a moment he stared, then with his gasping breath there came a low, thrilling cry.

He held out his hands to Rod.

Gleaming richly among the pebbles which he held was a nugget of pure gold, a nugget so large that Rod gave a wild yell, and in that one moment forgot that John Ball, the mad hunter, was dead or dying beneath the fall!

CHAPTER XVI