Rod forgot his fatigue in the new excitement.  Never in his wildest dreams of adventure had he foreseen an hour like this.  Each step seemed to bring them nearer the edge of the vast chasm through which the river plunged, and yet not a sign of it could he see.  He strained his eyes and ears, each moment expecting to hear the warning voice of the old warrior.  With a suddenness that chilled him he saw the great shadow close in upon them from the opposite side, and for the first time he realized their position.  On their left was the precipice—­on their right the sheer wall of the mountain!  How wide was the ledge along which they were traveling?  His foot struck a stick under the snow.  Catching it up he flung it out into space.  For a single instant he paused to listen, but there came no sound of the falling object.  The precipice was very near—­a little chill ran up his spine.  It was a sensation he had never experienced in walking the streets of a city!

Though he could not see, he knew that the ledge was now leading them up.  He could hear Wabigoon straining ahead of the toboggan and he began to assist by pushing on the rear of the loaded sled.  For half an hour this upward climb continued, until the sound of the river had entirely died away.  No longer was the mountain on the right.  Five minutes later Mukoki called a halt.

“On top mountain,” he said briefly.  “Camp here!”

Rod could not repress an exclamation of joy, and Wabigoon, as he threw off his harness, gave a suppressed whoop.  Mukoki, who seemed tireless, began an immediate search for a site for their camp and after a short breathing-spell Rod and Wabi joined him.  The spot chosen was in the shelter of a huge rock, and while Mukoki cleaned away the snow the young hunters set to work with their axes in a near growth of balsam, cutting armful after armful of the soft odorous boughs.  Inside of an hour a comfortable camp was completed, with an exhilarating fire throwing its crackling flames high up into the night before it.

For the first time since leaving the abandoned camp at the other end of the ridge the hunters fully realized how famished they were, and Mukoki was at once delegated to prepare supper while Wabi and Rod searched in the darkness for their night’s supply of wood.  Fortunately quite near at hand they discovered several dead poplars, the best fuel in the world for a camp-fire, and by the time the venison and coffee were ready they had collected a huge pile of this, together with several good-sized backlogs.

Mukoki had spread the feast in the opening of the shelter where the heat of the fire, reflected from the face of the rock, fell upon them in genial warmth, suffusing their faces with a most comfortable glow.  The heat, together with the feast, were almost overpowering in their effects, and hardly was his supper completed when Rod felt creeping over him a drowsiness which he attempted in vain to fight off a little longer.  Dragging himself back in the shelter he wrapped himself in his blanket, burrowed into the mass of balsam boughs, and passed quickly into oblivion.  His last intelligible vision was Mukoki piling logs upon the fire, while the flames shot up a dozen feet into the air, illumining to his drowsy eyes for an instant a wild chaos of rock, beyond which lay the mysterious and impenetrable blackness of the wilderness.