What had Wabigoon meant?
The young Indian soon rejoined him, but he spoke no more of John Ball.
When the two boys went to their blankets Mukoki still remained awake.
For a long time he sat beside the fire, his hands gripping the rifle across his knees, his head slightly bowed in that statue-like posture so characteristic of the Indian.

For fully an hour he sat motionless, and in his own way he was deeply absorbed in thought.

Soon after their discovery of the first golden bullet Wabigoon had whispered a few words into his ear, unknown to Rod; and to-night out in the gloom of the chasm, he had repeated those same words.

They had set Mukoki's mind working.

He was thinking now of something that happened long ago, when, in his reasoning, the wilderness was young and he was a youth.
In those days his one great treasure was a dog, and one winter he went with this faithful companion far into the hunting regions of the North, a long moon's travel from his village.