Sitting up, he felt his bumps. “Not so bad. Guess I could walk.” He stood up, took a few steps, made a wry face, rubbed his legs, took a few more steps, then gave vent to a low laugh. He was getting fit; be able to travel soon.
Having placed the damp sinew, well mixed with fish glue, at the back of the bow, Omnakok placed the bow before the fire, then dropping into a corner, with legs crossed and long arms hanging down, he fell asleep.
On tiptoe Johnny wandered from corner to corner of the cabin. He had been right. There was no food. The hunchback had shared his last meal.
“Some old sport,” he thought. “Not so bad for a savage.”
“When he wakes,” he told himself, “my new bow will be dry. Then we will go for a hunt. Wonder what the game will be like?”
Had he known he surely must have shuddered. Had he known what was happening to his good pal Faye Duncan, he must have rushed from the cabin in a mad desire to reach her side and bring her aid. Knowing none of these things, he replenished the fire, then sat down patiently to wait the next move on the strange checkerboard of life.
Faye Duncan and her grandfather had joined the Indians in a meal of stewed bear meat. Gordon Duncan had taken his place by the fire for his evening nap, when Tico, who had been sleeping with nose on paws, suddenly rose to sniff the air, then to go away into the night.
Her fear of the unknown overcome by curiosity, the girl followed him. They had not gone a hundred paces before they came to a trail in the snow. Many hours old, even distorted as they were by the melting of the snow, the footprints were unmistakable.
“The—the great banshee!” the girl whispered under her breath.
As for the dog, he lifted up his voice in a howl which was an unmistakable plaint for a lost friend. Little wonder. The trail had been made by the hunchback as he had carried Johnny to his cabin.