anged place with
one of the runners, so that there were intervals of rest for each two
times an hour. Quickly the red glow over the southwestern forests
faded away; the gloom grew thicker; far ahead, like an endless sheet
losing itself in a distant smother of blackness, stretched the ice and
snow of Lake Nipigon. There was no tree, no rock for guidance over
the trackless waste, yet never for an instant did Mukoki or Wabigoon
falter. The stars began burning brilliantly in the sky; far away the
red edge of the moon rose over this world of ice and snow and forest,
throbbing and palpitating like a bursting ball of fire, as one sees it
now and then in the glory of the great northern night.

Tirelessly, mile after mile, hour after hour, broken only by the
short intervals of rest on the sledge, continued the race across Lake
Nipigon. The moon rose higher; the blood in it paled to the crimson
glow of the moose flower, and silvered as it climbed into the sky,
until the orb hung like a great golden-white disk. In the splendor of
it the solitude of ice and snow glistened without end. There was no
sound but the slipping of the sledge, the pattering of the dogs'
moccasined feet, and now and then a few breathless words spoken by Rod
or his companions. It was a little after eight o'clock by Rod's watch
when there came a change in the appearance of the lake ahead of them.
Wabi, who was on the sledge, was the first to notice it, and he
shouted back his discovery to the white youth.

"The forest! We're across!"

The tired dogs seemed to leap into new life at his words, and the
leader replied with a whining joyous cry as the odors of balsam and
fir came to him. The sharp pinnacles of the forest, reaching up into
the night's white glow, grew more and more distinct as the sledge sped
on, and five minutes later the team drew up in a huddled, panting
bunch on the shore. That day the men and dogs from Wabinosh House had
traveled sixty miles.

"We'll camp here!" declared Wabi, as he dropped on the sledge. "We'll
camp here--unless you leave me behind!"

Mukoki, tireless to the last, had already found an ax.

"No rest now," he warned, "Too tired! You rest now--build no camp.
Build camp--then rest!"

"You're right, Muky," cried Wabi, jumping to his feet with forced
enthusiasm. "If I sit down for five minutes I'll fall asleep. Rod, you
build a fire. Muky and I will make the shelter."

In less than half an hour the balsam bough shelter was