The Gold Hunters / A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds

Rod was quivering with the old, thrilling excitement that had first come to him in the cabin where they had found the skeletons and the buckskin bag with its precious n

s gave utterance to the question which had ru

gold bullet

, absolutely no answer. To tell who shot tha

the yellow ball and was weighi

an ounce,"

ess himself. "Who in the wide world is shooting twenty dollar bullets at be

the yellow pell

ed happening. Behind that face, immobile, almost expressionless, worked a mind alive to every trick and secret of the vast solitudes, and even before his young comrades had gained the use of thei

ou think o

all gun, not cartridge,

trange; ver

loader!"

dian n

lead. Got hung

nough of it to clear away a part of the cloud

ullet, and where ha

" said Wabi "else would he ha

-more, much! more," a

ce, and he paused, as if scarce daring to venture the rest of what

Wabi turned and looked silently at the old Indian. Not a word was spoken. Si

explained. "When I took my course in geology and mineralogy I learned that, if one had half a dozen specimens of gold, ea

ith his knife, as Mukoki had done with the yellow b

ce was s

d was t

kly. Rod's face had suddenly turned a shade whiter, and Mukoki, not unders

our gold!" cried W

almost identically the same, deep trap on top, with slate beneath, and for that reason it is very possible that gold found right in

koki. "No lead-hungry-shoot bear

ve a thought to that, Rod. Of course he was hungry, or he wouldn't

got him," sai

ble tragedy in the wilderness: the starving man, his last hopeless molding of a golden bullet, the sight of th

" he repeated. "We h

the bear, and Rod and Wabigoon uns

th old," said the Indian.

r a starving man to eat," added Wabi. "Wel

t of the bear meat, and the animal's skin, which was immediately stretched between

get it when we co

replie

ll be

though it we

omes along and ste

essary articles from the canoe, but

cried in a

eard Rod's remark

d to a Woonga. If a white hunter came along here to-morrow, and found that hide stretched so low that the animals were getting at it, he would nail it higher f

tates," said Rod,

have given anything to have been able to recall them

ut our white blood up here is different from yours. It's the same blood that's in our Indians, every drop of it honest, loyal to its friends, and it runs red and strong with the love of this great wilderness. There are exceptions, of course, as you have seen

I were one of you! I love this big wilderness, and everyt

s," cried Wabi, g

d their supper and the three were ga

re great thieves, and who stole from one another. No man's snare was safe from his neighbor, fights and killings were of almost daily occurrence, and the chief of the tribe was the greatest thief of all, and of course escaped punishment. This chief l

as no rabbit, but the most wonderful creature he had ever beheld in the form of man, and he knew that it was the Great Spirit, and fell upon his face. And a great voice came to him, as if rolling from far beyond

, moon upon moon, until the end of time, must they live like brothers, setting thei

d because the Great Spirit came in the form he did the rabbit is the good luck animal of the Crees and Chippewayans

tened with

repeated. "It's glor

one of the understood laws of the North that every hunter shall have his 'trap line,' or 'run,' and it is not courtesy for another trapper to encroach upon it; but if he should, and he should lay a trap close besi

ke hands with you before I go to bed. I'm

he enthusiasm of the adventurers. For no one of them could relieve himself of the possible significance of th

at our gold has been found. It is in the heart of the wildest country on the continent, and surely if such a rich find ha

d, the discoverer i

es

ki nodded and grun

" he r

ittle headway, and at noon Mukoki announced that the river journey was at an end. For a few mo

night after our terrible adventure on

e faintly to his ears

ough the break in the mountain where

y of that fearful night and its desperat

thing again, only this tim

d Mukoki. "Six mile

the plains beyond the mountain, wh

and by hard work we can paddle up it until we come within about eight miles of

r canoe and supplies to the creek in the chasm

n mountain by ni

appy laugh and thum

d thought it was a Woonga, and had us al

i hurried on ahead of them, weighted with a half of their supplies. Every step now brought the thunder of the torrent rushing through the mountain more clearly to their ears, and they had not progressed more than a mile when they were compelled

mountain wall and the edge of the precipice came nearer and nearer, until there was no more than a six-foot ledge to walk upon. Rod's face turned strangely white as he realized, for the first time, the terrible chances they had taken on that black, eve

houted Wabi close up t

for a lifetime. Five hundred feet below him the over-running floods of spring were caught between the ragged edges of the two chasm walls, beating themselves in their fury to the whiteness of milk froth, until it seemed as though the earth itself must tremble under their mad rush.

wild blood in his veins leaping in response to the tumult and thunder of the magnificent spectacle deep down in the chasm. When he turned to Rod his lips made no sound, but his eyes glowed with that half-slumbering fire which came only when the red blood of the princess mother

d along the perilously narrow ledge, and did not rest again until they had come in safety to the broader trail leading up the mountain. An hour later Mukoki met them on his return for th

their fire, the bones of the huge lynx which Roderick had thought was an attacking Woonga, and had killed; and beside the shelter

eside it, with his arm resting upon it, and when he looked up at R

old

his eyes. Below him, as far as he could see, there stretched the vast, mysterious wilder

ail, killed by wolves; he thought of the story that Wabi had told him of the madness that came to the young warrior, of how year after year he followed the trail of wolves, wreaking his vengeance on their breed. And last he thought of Wolf-how Mukoki and Wabigoon had found the whelp in one of their traps; how they t

was Wo

ioned himself aloud, an

ans

od. He's forgotten us;

d, yes," said Rod; "b

ade no