“Neither do I.” Her grandfather smiled. “But we have the meat. It is enough. Now we may resume our journey in search of Timmie and the green gold.”
Had Faye been alone she most certainly would have visited the valley of dead bears. Had she done so, she must surely have recognized at once the footprints of her lost pal and the “great banshee.”
But, looking at the drawn face of her aged sire and realizing what long miles must still lie before him, she permitted him to have his way without a word.
All day the dogs followed the faint trail left by the fleeing Timmie and his wolfhounds. That night they camped beneath a sheltering cliff that lay at the foot of a heavily timbered hill. At the crest of that hill was a cabin, and in that cabin Johnny Longbow slept. Had a shot been fired by one of the Indians he must have heard it. No shot was fired. There was food in abundance. Besides, there was nothing to kill.
So, early next morning, they prepared again for the trail.
“Wonder why they carry those raw skins along,” Faye said to Gordon Duncan as the natives lashed the three bear pelts to their sled. “They weigh as much as our whole kit. And what possible good can they be?”
“Faye,” the old man rumbled, “to a native of this land a pelt of any kind is a precious thing. All year round he dresses in skins, always he sleeps beneath them. His home in summer is built of them, and in winter they form the floor mat which protects his feet from the cold earth. His dog harness is made of skins, his sled lashed together with them. To these Indians a pelt is a thing of great value. To cast it away is to offend the spirit of the dead bear.”
All that he said was true enough. Too soon he was to discover the real reason these sturdy little brown men were willing to put their own shoulders to the harness that the skins might remain upon the sled.
As they broke camp that day, Faye found herself wondering about many things. Would they come up with Timmie? Did he carry on his sled the strange collection of green gold antiques? Was he truly attempting to run away with the gold? If so, why? And what of Johnny, her good pal of the long trail? They had experienced many adventures together. Would their trails ever cross again? She could not quite believe him dead.
“Adventures,” she thought. “How little enjoyment one gets from an adventure when he has no one to share it!”