I loaded the fusils afresh and left him in the care of Ruth. When I gained the entrance to the cave I saw that it must have fallen dark outside, yet the mouth of the passage from the ridge was lit by the fires in the sky, which seemed faintly ablaze. As I set down the guns and drew my furs about me, shivering in the bitterness of the cold, I was thankful that at least I was sheltered from that great wind that tore down through the gap moaning and shrieking.
Where had that moose-track come from? It seemed hard to believe that the mighty animal had passed from woods to ridge, and so on into the passage without having been seen by any. Yet it must have been even so, for the trail was a fresh one, and I wondered at the thing.
With it all I was mightily afraid, nor hesitated to admit it to myself. The death of The Keeper had been a great shock to me, and the finding of Hudson, the mere knowing that his earthly form lay in that cave behind me, was horrible. The fearsomeness of that passageway through the cliffs, lying so dark and ghostly in front of me, added in no small degree to my shakings of soul.
And to cap all, Radisson lay stricken mortally. This I guessed from his manner of speaking and from the fact that he would not allow us to care for his wound. The great wonder of the whole thing, from the trail of the Mighty One to the martyrdom of the Mohawk, oppressed me, and I remembered how The Keeper had prophesied that he would not go on the spirit-trail alone.
Then I fell to thinking of Hudson. So the little boat had not been lost, as all men had thought, but had reached land. Who might know the tale of all that had happened? The stout seaman must have seen his friends and his son perish one by one, yet have struggled on to the west until he had come to the Ghost Hills and found there the rest denied him in life.
So I sat there half in dream, thinking bitterly on what was to be the end of it all. For myself I cared little, but I could not see Ruth in red hands. Why did not Swift Arrow and Uchichak arrive? Almost on the thought, it seemed that a dark shadow flitted down through the pass, whereat I caught up one of the guns and cried out.
"It is Ca-yen-gui-ha-no," came the voice of the Mohawk. "Where is my brother?"
"Here," I shouted, great relief in my heart, and had like to fling my arms about the tall old man as he clambered up to me. "But Uchichak—where are the Crees? We are in sore need, Swift Arrow!"
"They come," he grunted in surprise as he saw where I stood. "The Mighty One met us. I fired and drove him back. The Crees are slow. Swift Arrow came on quickly, and passed the Mighty One, who follows behind me."
He peered about, and I motioned him back into the cave, whither he vanished. A moment later there came a yell from the mouth of the gap, and I knew that the Chippewas were upon me. A number of dark shapes flitted across the opening, a hundred paces away, and I fired at one of these, the echoes rolling up and up in weird echoes of sound.