y beyond where we can see. Those
were his hunting-grounds when a boy. See that mountain yonder? You might
take it for a cloud. It's thirty miles from here! And that lake down
there--you might think a rifle-shot would reach it--is five miles away!
If a moose or a caribou or a wolf should cross it how you could see
him."

For a few moments longer the three stood silent, then Wabi and the old
Indian returned to the fire to finish the preparation of breakfast,
leaving Rod alone in his enchantment. What unsolved mysteries, what
unwritten tragedies, what romance, what treasure of gold that vast North
must hold! For a thousand, perhaps a million centuries, it had lain thus
undisturbed in the embrace of nature; few white men had broken its
solitudes, and the wild things still lived there as they had lived in
the winters of ages and ages ago.

The call to breakfast came almost as an unpleasant interruption to Rod.
But it did not shock his appetite as it had his romantic fancies, and he
performed his part at the morning meal with considerable credit. Wabi
and Mukoki had already decided that they would not take up the trail
again that day but would remain in their present camp until the
following morning. There were several reasons for this delay.

"We can't travel without snow-shoes now," explained Wabi to Rod, "and
we've got to take a day off to teach you how to use them. Then, all the
wild things are lying low. Moose, deer, caribou, and especially wolves
and fur animals, won't begin traveling much until this afternoon and
to-night, and if we took up the trail now we would have no way of
telling what kind of a game country we were in. And that is the
important thing just now. If we strike a first-rate game country during
the next couple days we'll stop and build our winter camp."

"Then you believe we are far enough away from the Woongas?" asked Rod.

Mukoki grunted.

"No believe Woongas come over mountain. Heap good game country back
there. They stay."

During the meal the white boy asked a hundred questions about the vast
wilderness which lay stretched out before them in a great panorama, and
in which they were soon to bury themselves, and every answer added to
his enthusiasm. Immediately after they had finished eating Rod expressed
a desire to begin his study in snow-shoeing, and for an hour after that
Wabi and Mukoki piloted him back and forth along the ridge, instructing
him in this and in that, applauding when he m