ey were half-witted. While he was there they were all planning to
migrate for the most absurd reason--what do you suppose? Magic! They
claimed the end of the world was coming! Of course it was coming some
time. But they said now, right away. But why? Because the marionettes
were dancing so much. And they had seen the Father of the Marionettes
floating in the sky and making thunder! Fools! But the strangest thing
of all, they said they could hunt no longer, for they were afraid to
cross something--an iron serpent that stung with fire if you touched it,
and killed you! What foolishness! An iron serpent! But he had asked them
and they had sworn on the holy cross that it was true.

Bennie listened with a chill creeping up his spine. But it would never
do to hint what this disclosure meant to him. Between puffs of his pipe
he asked casual, careless questions of Nichicun. These Nascopees, for
instance, how far off might their land be? And where did they assert
this extraordinary serpent of iron to be? Were there rivers in the
Nascopee country? Did white men ever go there? All these things the
wounded Montagnais told him. It appeared, moreover, that the Rassini
River was near the Nascopee territory, and that it flowed into the
Moisie only seven miles above the camp. All that night the marionettes
danced in Bennie's brain.

Next morning they propped Nichicun on his bed of moss, laid a rifle and
a box of matches beside him, and bade him farewell. At the mouth of the
Rassini River Prof. Bennie Hooker held up his hand and announced that he
was going to the Nascopee country. The canoe halted abruptly. Old
Edouard declared that they had been engaged only to go to the big cache,
and that their present trip was merely by way of a little excursion to
see the river. They had no supplies for such a journey, no proper amount
of ammunition. No, they would deposit the professor on the nearest
sandbar if he wished, but they were going back.

Bennie arose unsteadily in the canoe and dug into his pocket, producing
a roll of gold coin. Two hundred and fifty dollars he promised them if
they would take him to the nearest tribe of Nascopees; five hundred if
they could find the Iron Serpent.

"_Bien!_" exclaimed both Indians without a moment's hesitation, and the
canoe plunged forward up the Rassini.

Once more a dreamlike succession of brilliant, frosty days; once more
the star-studded sky in which always the marionettes danced. And then at
l