“If you can stand it,” said Wabi, nodding at Rod over his caribou steak, “we won’t lose a minute from now on.  Over that country we ought to make twenty-five or thirty miles to-morrow.  We may strike our hunting-ground by noon, or it may take us two or three days; but in either event we haven’t any time to waste.  Hurrah for the big camp, I say—­and our fun begins!”

It seemed to Rod as though he had hardly fallen asleep that night when somebody began tumbling him about in his bed of balsam.  Opening his eyes he beheld Wabi’s laughing face, illuminated in the glow of a roaring fire.

“Time’s up!” he called cheerily.  “Hustle out, Rod.  Breakfast is sizzling hot, everything is packed, and here you are still dreaming of—­what?”

“Minnetaki!” shot back Rod with unblushing honesty.

In another minute he was outside, straightening his disheveled garments and smoothing his tousled hair.  It was still very dark, but Rod assured himself by his watch that it was nearly four o’clock.  Mukoki had already placed their breakfast on a flat rock beside the fire and, according to Wabigoon’s previous scheme, no time was lost in disposing of it.

Dawn was just breaking when the little cavalcade of adventurers set out from the camp.  More keenly than ever Rod now felt the loss of his rifle.  They were about to enter upon a hunter’s paradise—­and he had no gun!  His disappointment was acute and he could not repress a confession of his feelings to Wabi.  The Indian youth at once suggested a happy remedy.  They would take turns in using his gun, Rod to have it one day and he the next; and Wabi’s heavy revolver would also change hands, so that the one who did not possess the rifle would be armed with the smaller weapon.  This solution of the difficulty lifted a dampening burden from Rod’s heart, and when the little party began its descent into the wilderness regions under the mountain the city lad carried the rifle, for Wabi insisted that he have the first “turn.”

Once free of the rock-strewn ridge the two boys joined forces in pulling the toboggan while Mukoki struck out a trail ahead of them.  As it became lighter Rod found his eyes glued with keen interest to Mukoki’s snow-shoes, and for the first time in his life he realized what it really meant to “make a trail.”  The old Indian was the most famous trailmaker as well as the keenest trailer of his tribe, and in the comparatively open bottoms through which they were now traveling he was in his element.  His strides were enormous, and with each stride he threw up showers of snow, leaving a broad level path behind him in which the snow was packed by his own weight, so that when Wabi and Rod came to follow him they were not impeded by sinking into a soft surface.

Half a mile from the mountain Mukoki stopped and waited for the others to come up to him.

“Moose!” he called, pointing at a curious track in the snow.

Rod leaned eagerly over the track.