THE SURPRISE AT THE POST
From the moment that the adventurers turned their backs upon the Woonga country Mukoki was in command. With the storm in their favor everything else now depended upon the craft of the old pathfinder. There was neither moon nor wind to guide them, and even Wabi felt that he was not competent to strike a straight trail in a strange country and a night storm. But Mukoki, still a savage in the ways of the wilderness, seemed possessed of that mysterious sixth sense which is known as the sense of orientation—that almost supernatural instinct which guides the carrier pigeon as straight as a die to its home-cote hundreds of miles away. Again and again during that thrilling night's flight Wabi or Rod would ask the Indian where Wabinosh House lay, and he would point out its direction to them without hesitation. And each time it seemed to the city youth that he pointed a different way, and it proved to him how easy it was to become hopelessly lost in the wilderness.
Not until midnight did they pause to rest. They had traveled slowly but steadily and Wabi figured that they had covered fifteen miles. Five miles behind them their trail was completely obliterated by the falling snow. Morning would betray to the Woongas no sign of the direction taken by the fugitives.
"They will believe that we have struck directly westward for the Post," said Wabi. "To-morrow night we'll be fifty miles apart."
During this stop a small fire was built behind a fallen log and the hunters refreshed themselves with a pot of strong coffee and what little remained of the rabbit and biscuits. The march was then resumed.
It seemed to Rod that they had climbed an interminable number of ridges and had picked their way through an interminable number of swampy bottoms between them, and he, even more than Mukoki, was relieved when they struck the easier traveling of open plains. In fact, Mukoki seemed scarcely to give a thought to his wound and Roderick was almost ready to drop in his tracks by the time a halt was called an hour before dawn. The old warrior was confident that they were now well out of danger and a rousing camp-fire was built in the shelter of a thick growth of spruce.
"Spruce partridge in mornin'," affirmed Mukoki. "Plenty here for breakfast."
"How do you know?" asked Rod, whose hunger was ravenous.
"Fine thick spruce, all in shelter of dip," explained the Indian. "Birds winter here."
Wabi had unpacked the furs, and the larger of these, including six lynx and three especially fine wolf skins, he divided into three piles.