wenty miles. We ought to make it by dawn."

Mukoki made no answer, but quickened his pace as the cedar and balsam
forest gave place to an open plain which stretched for a mile or two
ahead of them. For an hour longer the moon continued to light up the
wilderness; then, with its descent lower and lower into the west, the
gloom began to thicken, until only the stars were left to guide the
pursuers. Even these were beginning to fade when Mukoki halted the
panting team on the summit of a mountainous ridge, and pointed into
the north.

"The plains!"

For several minutes the three stood silent, gazing out into the gloom
of the vast solitudes that swept unbroken to Hudson Bay. Again Rod's
blood was thrilled with the romance of what lay at his feet and far
beyond, thrilled with the romance and mystery of that land of the wild
which reached for hundreds of miles into the North, and into which the
foot of the white man had as yet scarce left its imprint.

Before him, enveloped now in the deep gloom of the northern night,
slept a vast unexplored world, a land whose story the passing of
ages had left unrevealed. What tragedies of nature had its silent
fastnesses beheld? What treasure did they hold? Half a century or more
ago the men whose skeletons they had found in the old cabin had braved
the perils of those trackless solitudes, and somewhere hundreds of
miles out in that black gloom they had found gold, the gold that
had fallen as an inheritance to them in the discovery of the old
birch-bark map. And somewhere, somewhere out there was Minnetaki!

Across the plain at their feet the three adventurers had raced for
their lives from the bloodthirsty Woongas only a week or so before;
now they crossed it a second time and at even greater speed, for then
they had possessed no dogs. At the end of another hour Mukoki no
longer traveled faster than a walk. His eyes were constantly on the
alert. Occasionally he would stop the dogs and strike off to the right
or the left of the trail alone. He spoke no word to his companions,
and neither Rod nor Wabigoon offered a suggestion. They knew, without
questioning, that they were approaching their old camp, and just as
the experienced hunter makes no sign or sound while his dog is nosing
out a half-lost trail so they held back while Mukoki, the most famous
pathfinder in all those regions, led them slowly on. The last of the
stars went out. For a time the blackness of the night grew deeper;
th