Terogloona shook his head. “Old rifle, mebby all right,” he mumbled; “new rifle, mebby Indian not give.”
The girls, not at all convinced that this conclusion was a correct one, still clung to the belief that their protector had been the Indian.
Since it was impossible to cross the river, it was decided that they should make camp at the edge of the forest; that Terogloona, with the rifle, was to keep watch over the herd the first part of the night; and Marian, who was a good shot, the latter half.
It was while Marian was packing away the dishes after supper that the piece of old ivory with the ancient engraving on it, the newest piece which they had found in the mountain cave, fell out of her sleeping bag. Without knowing it, she had saved this, the least of their treasures.
“Look!” she said to Terogloona, who sat cross-legged before the fire, “we found this in a mountain cave. What does it say? Surely you can read it.”
For a long time Terogloona studied the crude picture in silence. When at last he spoke, it was to inform her that the ivory had once belonged to his great-uncle; that it told of a very successful hunt in which twenty caribou had been driven into a trap and killed with bows and arrows; that shortly after that they had come upon a white man with a long beard, starving in a cabin beside a stream. They had given the man caribou meat. He had grown strong, then had gone away. As pay for their kindness he had offered them heavy yellow pebbles and dust from a moosehide sack. This they had not taken because they did not know what it was good for. They had asked two cups and a knife instead.
As he explained this, the Eskimo showed each picture that told the part of the story narrated.
“It seems very real,” said Marian. “How long ago could it have been?”
“Mebby twenty years,” said Terogloona.
“The white man was a prospector.”