The boy crept back from his rock, straightened himself, and followed in their trail.  He mentally calculated that it would be ten minutes before the Woongas, coming up from the sides and rear, would discover his flight, and by that time he would have nearly a mile the start of them.  He saw, without stopping, where Wabi had dressed Mukoki’s wound.  There were spots of blood and a red rag upon the snow.  Half a mile farther on the two had paused again, and this time he knew that Mukoki had stopped to rest.  From now on they had rested every quarter of a mile or so, and soon Roderick saw them toiling slowly through the snow ahead of him.

He ran up, panting, anxious.

“How—­” he began.

Wabi looked at him grimly.

“How much farther, Rod?” he asked.

“Not more than half a mile.”

Wabi motioned for him to take Mukoki’s other arm.

“He has bled a good deal,” he said.  There was a hardness in his voice that made Rod shudder, and he caught his breath as Wabi shot him a meaning glance behind the old warrior’s doubled shoulders.

They went faster now, almost carrying their wounded comrade between them.  Suddenly, Wabi paused, threw his rifle to his shoulder, and fired.  A few yards ahead a huge white rabbit kicked in his death struggles in the snow.

“If we do reach the chasm Mukoki must have something to eat,” he said.

“We’ll reach it!” gasped Rod.  “We’ll reach it!  There’s the woods.  We go down there!”

They almost ran, with Mukoki’s snow-shod feet dragging between them, and five minutes later they were carrying the half-unconscious Indian down the steep side of the mountain.  At its foot Wabi turned, and his eyes flashed with vengeful hatred.

“Now, you devils!” he shouted up defiantly.  “Now!”

Mukoki aroused himself for a few moments and Rod helped him back to the shelter of the chasm wall.  He found a nook between great masses of rock, almost clear of snow, and left him there while he hurried back to Wabigoon.

“You stand on guard here, Rod,” said the latter.  “We must cook that rabbit and get some life back into Mukoki.  I think he has stopped bleeding, but I am going to look again.  The wound isn’t fatal, but it has weakened him.  If we can get something hot into him I believe he will be able to walk again.  Did you have anything left over from your dinner on the trail to-day?”

Rod unstrapped the small pack in which the hunters carried their food while on the trail, and which had been upon his shoulders since noon.

“There is a double handful of coffee, a cupful of tea, plenty of salt and a little bread,” he said.

“Good!  Few enough supplies for three people in this kind of a wilderness—­but they’ll save Mukoki!”

Wabi went back, while Rod, sheltered behind a rock, watched the narrow incline into the chasm.  He almost hoped the Woongas would dare to attempt a descent, for he was sure that he and Wabi would have them at a terrible disadvantage and with their revolvers and three rifles could inflict a decisive blow upon them before they reached the bottom.  But he saw no sign of their enemies.  He heard no sound from above, yet he knew that the outlaws were very near—­only waiting for the protecting darkness of night.