A fat pigeon, strayed from its dock, sat on a bough above his camp, in a way to tempt Providence. Rolf drew a blunt arrow to the head and speedily had the pigeon in hand for some future meal.
As he prepared it, he noticed that its crop was crammed with the winged seed of the slippery elm, so he put them all back again into the body when it was cleaned, knowing well that they are a delicious food and in this case would furnish a welcome variant to the bird itself.
An hour crawled by. Rolf had to go out to the far fire, for it was nearly dead. Instinctively he sought a stout stick to help him; then remembered how Hoag had managed with one leg and two crutches. “Ho!” he exclaimed. “That is the answer—this is the 'way.”'
Now his attention was fixed on all the possible crutches. The trees seemed full of them, but all at impossible heights. It was long before he found one that he could cut with his knife. Certainly he was an hour working at it; then he heard a sound that made his blood jump.
From far away in the north it came, faint but reaching;
“Ye-hoo-o.”
Rolf dropped his knife and listened with the instinctively open mouth that takes all pressure from the eardrums and makes them keen. It came again: “Ye-hoo-o.” No mistake now, and Rolf sent the ringing answer back:
“Ye-hoo-o, ye-hoo-o.”
In ten minutes there was a sharp “yap, yap,” and Skookum bounded out of the woods to leap and bark around Rolf, as though he knew all about it; while a few minutes later, came Quonab striding.
“Ho, boy,” he said, with a quiet smile, and took Rolf's hand. “Ugh! That was good,” and he nodded to the smoke fire. “I knew you were in trouble.”