fire roaring in the stove. He
seated himself beside it, holding out a pair of hands blue with cold.

"Ugh! It's an awful night!" he shivered.

He laughed across at Rod, a little uneasily, but with the old light back
in his eyes. Suddenly he asked:

"Did Minnetaki ever tell you--anything--queer--about Mukoki, Rod?"

"Nothing more than you have told me yourself."

"Well, once in a great while Mukoki has--not exactly a fit, but a little
mad spell! I have never determined to my own satisfaction whether he is
really out of his head or not. Sometimes I think he is and sometimes I
think he is not. But the Indians at the Post believe that at certain
times he goes crazy over wolves."

"Wolves!" exclaimed Rod.

"Yes, wolves. And he has good reason. A good many years ago, just about
when you and I were born, Mukoki had a wife and child. My mother and
others at the Post say that he was especially gone over the kid. He
wouldn't hunt like other Indians, but would spend whole days at his
shack playing with it and teaching it to do things; and when he did go
hunting he would often tote it on his back, even when it wasn't much
more than a squalling papoose. He was the happiest Indian at the Post,
and one of the poorest. One day Mukoki came to the Post with a little
bundle of fur, and most of the things he got in exchange for it, mother
says, were for the kid. He reached the store at night and expected to
leave for home the next noon, which would bring him to his camp before
dark. But something delayed him and he didn't get started until the
morning after. Meanwhile, late in the afternoon of the day when he was
to have been home, his wife bundled up the kid and they set out to meet
him. Well--"

A weird howl from the captive wolf interrupted Wabi for a moment.

"Well, they went on and on, and of course did not meet him. And then,
the people at the Post say, the mother must have slipped and hurt
herself. Anyway, when Mukoki came over the trail the next day he found
them half eaten by wolves. From that day on Mukoki was a different
Indian. He became the greatest wolf hunter in all these regions. Soon
after the tragedy he came to the Post to live and since then he has not
left Minnetaki and me. Once in a great while when the night is just
right, when the moon is shining and it is bitter cold, Mukoki seems to
go a little mad. He calls this a 'wolf night.' No one can stop him from
going out; no one can get him to talk; he will allow