critical eyes, and once when he pulled
himself back cautiously by means of a small sapling he explained his
interest by saying:

"Plenty bear there in spring!"

But Rod was not thinking of bears. Once more his head was filled with
the thought of gold. Perhaps that very chasm held the priceless secret
that had died with its owners half a century ago. The dark and gloomy
silence that hung between those two walls of rock, the death-like
desolation, the stealthy windings of the creek--everything in that dim
and mysterious world between the two mountains, unshattered by sound and
impenetrable to the winter sun, seemed in his mind to link itself with
the tragedy of long ago.

Did that chasm hold the secret of the dead men?

Again and again Rod found himself asking this question as he followed
Mukoki, and the oftener he asked it the nearer he seemed to an answer,
until at last, with a curious, thrilling certainty that set his blood
tingling he caught Mukoki by the arm and pointing back, said:

"Mukoki--the gold was found between those mountains!"

CHAPTER IX

WOLF TAKES VENGEANCE UPON HIS PEOPLE

From that hour was born in Roderick Drew's breast a strange,
imperishable desire. Willingly at this moment would he have given up the
winter trapping to have pursued that golden _ignis fatuus_ of all
ages--the lure of gold. To him the story of the old cabin, the skeletons
and the treasure of the buckskin bag was complete. Those skeletons had
once been men. They had found a mine--a place where they had picked up
nuggets with their fingers. And that treasure ground was somewhere near.
No longer was he puzzled by the fact that they had discovered no more
gold in the old log cabin. In a flash he had solved that mystery. The
men had just begun to gather their treasure when they had fought. What
was more logical than that? One day, two, three--and they had quarreled
over division, over rights. That was the time when they were most likely
to quarrel. Perhaps one had discovered the gold and had therefore
claimed a larger share. Anyway, the contents of the buckskin bag
represented but a few days' labor. Rod was sure of that.

Mukoki had grinned and shrugged his shoulders with an air of stupendous
doubt when Rod had told him that the gold lay between the mountains, so
now the youth kept his thoughts to himself. It was a silent trail home.
Rod's mind was too active in its new channel, and he was too deeply
absorbed in impressing