s world shut in by rock walls. Again he saw the dancing
skeletons, heard the rattle of their bones, and watched the wonderful
dream-battle that had led him to the birch-bark map. Wabigoon, his
eyes gleaming in the gathering darkness, thought of their flight from
the outlaw savages, and Mukoki--

The white youth had turned a little to look at the old warrior. Mukoki
sat as rigid as a pillar of stone an arm's reach from him. Head erect,
arms tense, his eyes gleaming strangely, he stared straight out into
the gloom between the chasm walls. Rod shivered. He knew, knew without
questioning, that Mukoki was thinking of the cry!

And at that instant there floated up from the black chaos ahead a
sound, a sound low and weird, like the moaning of a winter's wind
through the pine tops, swelling, advancing, until it ended in a
shriek--a shriek that echoed and reechoed between the chasm walls,
dying away in a wail that froze the blood of the three who sat and
listened!

CHAPTER XII

WABI MAKES A STRANGE DISCOVERY

Mukoki broke the silence which followed the terrible cry. With a
choking sound, as if some unseen hand were clutching at his throat, he
slipped from the rock upon which he was sitting and crouched behind
it, his rifle gleaming faintly as he leveled it down the chasm. There
came the warning click of Wabigoon's gun, and the young Indian hunched
himself forward until he was no more than an indistinct shadow in the
fast-deepening gloom of night. Only Rod still sat erect. For a moment
his heart seemed to stand still. Then something leaped into his brain
and spread like fire through his veins, calling him to his feet,
trembling with the knowledge of what that cry had told him! It was not
a lesson from the wilderness that Roderick Drew was learning now. As
fast as the mind could travel he had gone far back into the strife and
misery and madness of civilization, and there he found the language
of that fearful cry floating up the chasm. He had heard it once,
twice--yes, again and again, and the memory of it had burned deep down
into his soul. He turned to his companions, trying to speak, but the
horror that had first filled Mukoki now fastened itself on him, and
his tongue was lifeless.

"A madman!"

Wabi's fingers dug into his arm like the claws of a bear.

"A what!"

"A madman!" repeated Rod, trying to speak more calmly. "The man who
shot the bear and fired at Mukoki and who uses gold bullets in his gun
is mad