His mind returned often to the strange tales Curlie had told him, tales of the “Gray Streak.”
“What if they were to swoop down upon me here on this river?” he said to himself with a shudder.
Once more he thought of pitchblende. “I’ll have some that shines like a candle in the dark before I turn back.”
Before he turned back? How little he knew of that which would happen before he turned his face toward camp!
Two things happened in quick succession. A caribou appeared on a ridge not fifty yards from his sled. A quick, fleeting arrow, and his food supply was supplemented by two hundred pounds of rich, juicy meat. Part of this he would hide in a scrub spruce tree, ready for use on his return. The rest would feed his dogs and himself for three days. And there was other food on his sled.
It was while he was preparing this meat that a truly curious thing happened. On a ridge a quarter of a mile from where he stood appeared a lone traveler. He drove a dog team. And such a team as it was! Up until that moment the boy had not believed that dogs could go so fast.
“Like the wind!” he exclaimed. “As if they had wings and raced an airplane.”
The driver was stranger still. He was short and broad. As one looked at him from a distance it seemed that a pair of very broad shoulders had been set upon a pair of long legs, and a head placed atop it all. Yet those legs were powerful and fast. This strange being followed the team with ease.
“The hunchback bowman.” Johnny’s lips parted with wonder, and a thrill ran through his being. The bow and his sled had been made by a hunchback, an Indian. But this Indian had lived hundreds of miles away. “The hunchback bowman,” he repeated, then turned to the task of the hour.