nd a low
whistle came to their ears. Another ten minutes and the three stood
together at the top of the mountain, Rod and the wounded Mukoki
breathing hard from their exertions.

For a time the three sat down in the snow and waited, watched, listened;
and from Rod's heart there went up something that was almost a prayer,
for it was snowing--snowing hard, and it seemed to him that the storm
was something which God had specially directed should fall in their path
that it might shield them and bring them safely home.

And when he rose to his feet Wabi was still silent, and the three
gripped hands in mute thankfulness at their deliverance.

Still speechless, they turned instinctively for a moment back to the
dark desolation beyond the chasm--the great, white wilderness in which
they had passed so many adventurous yet happy weeks; and as they gazed
into the chaos beyond the second mountain there came to them the lonely,
wailing howl of a wolf.

"I wonder," said Wabi softly. "I wonder--if that--is Wolf?"

And then, Indian file, they trailed into the south.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SURPRISE AT THE POST

From the moment that the adventurers turned their backs upon the Woonga
country Mukoki was in command. With the storm in their favor everything
else now depended upon the craft of the old pathfinder. There was
neither moon nor wind to guide them, and even Wabi felt that he was not
competent to strike a straight trail in a strange country and a night
storm. But Mukoki, still a savage in the ways of the wilderness, seemed
possessed of that mysterious sixth sense which is known as the sense of
orientation--that almost supernatural instinct which guides the carrier
pigeon as straight as a die to its home-cote hundreds of miles away.
Again and again during that thrilling night's flight Wabi or Rod would
ask the Indian where Wabinosh House lay, and he would point out its
direction to them without hesitation. And each time it seemed to the
city youth that he pointed a different way, and it proved to him how
easy it was to become hopelessly lost in the wilderness.

Not until midnight did they pause to rest. They had traveled slowly but
steadily and Wabi figured that they had covered fifteen miles. Five
miles behind them their trail was completely obliterated by the falling
snow. Morning would betray to the Woongas no sign of the direction taken
by the fugitives.

"They will believe that we have struck directly westward for t