A

For a few moments after Mukoki's remarkable discovery the three stood
speechless. Wabigoon stared as if he could not bring himself to
believe the evidence of his eyes. Rod was quivering with the old,
thrilling excitement that had first come to him in the cabin where
they had found the skeletons and the buckskin bag with its precious
nuggets, and Mukoki's face was a study. The thin, long fingers which
held the two pieces of the gold bullet trembled, which was an unusual
symptom in the old pathfinder. It was he who broke the silence, and
his words gave utterance to the question which had rushed into the
heads of the two young hunters.

"Who shoot gold bullets at bear?"

And to this question there was, for the time, absolutely no answer. To
tell who shot that bullet was impossible. But why was it used?

Wabigoon had taken the parts of the yellow ball and was weighing them
in the palm of his hand.

"It weighs an ounce," he declared.

"Twenty dollars' worth of gold!" gasped Rod, as if he lacked breath
to express himself. "Who in the wide world is shooting twenty dollar
bullets at bear?" he cried more excitedly, repeating Mukoki's question
of a minute before.

He, too, weighed the yellow pellets in his hand.

The puzzled look had gone out of Mukoki's face. 'Again the
battle-scarred old warrior wore the stoic mask of his race, which only
now and then is lifted for an instant by some sudden and unexpected
happening. Behind that face, immobile, almost expressionless, worked a
mind alive to every trick and secret of the vast solitudes, and even
before his young comrades had gained the use of their tongues he was,
in his savage imagination, traveling swiftly back over the trail of
the monster bear to the gun that had fired the golden bullet. Wabigoon
understood him, and watched him eagerly.

"What do you think of it, Muky?"

"Man shoot powder and ball gun, not cartridge," replied Mukoki slowly.
"Old gun. Strange; ver' strange!"

"A muzzle loader!" said Wabi.

The Indian nodded.

"Had powder, no lead. Got hungry; used gold."

Eight words had told the story, or at least enough of it to clear away
a part of the cloud of mystery, but the other part still remained.

Who had fired the bullet, _and where had the gold come from?_

"He must have struck it rich," said Wabi "else would he have a chunk
of gold like that?"

"Where that come from--more, much! more," agreed Mukoki shortly.

"Do you suppose--" began Rod