He had decided upon the latter course when his eyes caught a narrow horizontal slit cleaving the face of the mountain on his left, toward which the snow-shoe tracks seemed to lead.  With his rifle ready for instant use the youth slowly approached the fissure, and was surprised to find that it was a complete break in the wall of rock, not more than four feet wide, and continuing on a steady incline to the summit of the ridge.  At the mouth of this fissure his mysterious watcher had taken off his snow-shoes and Rod could see where he had climbed up the narrow exit from the chasm.

With a profound sense of relief the young hunter hurried along the base of the mountain, keeping well within its shelter so that eyes that might be spying from above could not see his movements.  He now felt no fear of danger.  The stranger’s flight up the cleft in the chasm wall and his careful attempts to conceal his trail among the rocks assured Rod that he had no designs upon his life.  His chief purpose had seemed to be to keep secret his own presence in the gorge, and this fact in itself added to the mystification of the white youth.  For a long time he had been secretly puzzled, and had evolved certain ideas of his own because of the movements of the Woongas.  Contrary to the opinions of Mukoki and Wabigoon, he believed that the red outlaws were perfectly conscious of their presence in the dip.  From the first their actions had been unaccountable, but not once had one of their snow-shoe trails crossed their trap-lines.

Was this fact in itself not significant?  Rod was of a contemplative theoretical turn of mind, one of those wide-awake, interesting young fellows who find food for conjecture in almost every incident that occurs, and his suspicions were now aroused to an unusual pitch.  A chief fault, however, was that he kept most of his suspicions to himself, for he believed that Mukoki and Wabigoon, born and taught in the life of the wilderness, were infallible in their knowledge of the ways and the laws and the perils of the world they were in.

CHAPTER XII

THE SECRET OF THE SKELETON’S HAND

A little before noon Rod arrived at the top of the hill from which he could look down on their camp.  He was filled with pleasurable anticipation, and with an unbounded swelling satisfaction that caused him to smile as he proceeded into the dip.  He had found a fortune in the mysterious chasm.  The burden of the silver fox upon his shoulders was a most pleasing reminder of that, and he pictured the moment when the good-natured raillery of Mukoki and Wabigoon would be suddenly turned into astonishment and joy.

As he approached the cabin the young hunter tried to appear disgusted and half sick, and his effort was not bad in spite of his decided inclination to laugh.  Wabi met him in the doorway, grinning broadly, and Mukoki greeted him with a throatful of his inimitable chuckles.