Mukoki's mind, simple in its reasoning of things that did not belong to the wilderness, had accepted the assurances and explanations of Rod and Wabigoon. Wabi, half-bred in the wild, felt alarm only in the sense of physical peril. It was different with the white youth. What is there in civilization that sends the chill of terror to one's heart more quickly than the presence of a human being who has gone mad? And this madman was at large! At that very instant he might be listening to their breathing and their whispered words half a dozen feet away; any moment might see the blackness take form and the terrible thing hurl itself at their throats. Rod, unlike Wabigoon, knew that the powers of this strange creature of the chasm were greater than their own, that it could travel with the swiftness and silence of an animal through the darkness, that perhaps it could smell them and feel their presence as it passed on its way to the plain. He was anxious now to hear the cry again. What was the meaning of this silence? Was the madman already conscious of their presence? Was he creeping upon them at that moment, as still as the black shadows that shut in their vision? His mind was working in such vivid imaginings that he was startled when Wabi prodded him gently in the side.
“Look over there—across the chasm,” he whispered. “See that glow on the mountain wall?”
“The moon!” replied Rod.
“Yes. I've been watching it, and it's creeping down and down. The moon is going to swing across this break in the mountains. In fifteen minutes we shall be able to see.”
“It won't swing across so much as it will come up in line with us,” replied Rod. “Watch how that light is lengthening! We shall be able to see for several hours.”
He started to rise to his feet but fell back with an astonished cry. For a third time there came the mad hunter's scream, this time far above and beyond them, floating down from the distance of the moon-lit plain!
“He passed us!” exclaimed Wabi. “He passed us—and we didn't hear him!” He leaped to his feet and his voice rose excitedly until it rang in a hundred echoes between the chasm walls. “He passed us, and we didn't hear him!”
Mukoki's voice came strangely from out of the gloom.
“No man do that! No man—no man—”
“Hush!” commanded Rod. “Now is our time, boys! Quick, get everything to the creek. He's half a mile out on the plain and we can get away before he comes back. I'd rather risk a few rocks than another one of his golden bullets!”
“So had I!” cried Wabi.
As if their lives depended on their exertions the three set to work. Mukoki staggered ahead over the rocks with his burden while the boys followed with the light canoe and the remaining pack. Their previous experiences in the chasm had taught them where to approach the stream, and ten minutes later they were at its side. Without a moment's hesitation Mukoki dropped his pack and plunged in. The edge of the moon was just appearing over the southern mountain wall and by its light Rod and Wabigoon could see that the water of the creek was rushing with great swiftness as high as the old warrior's knees.
“No ver' deep,” said the Indian. “Rocks—”
“I followed this creek for half a dozen miles and its bottom is as smooth as a floor!” interrupted Rod. “There's no danger of rocks for that distance!”
He made no effort now to suppress the pleasure which he felt at the escape from their unpleasant situation. Mukoki steadied the canoe as it was placed in the water, and was the last to climb into it, taking his usual position in the stern where he could use to best advantage the powerful sweeps of his paddle. In an instant the swift current of the little stream caught the birch bark and carried it along with remarkable speed. After several futile strokes of his paddle Wabi settled back upon his heels.
“It's all up to you, Muky,” he called softly. “I can't do a thing from the bow. The current is too swift. All you can do is to keep her nose straight.”
The light of the moon was now filling the chasm and the adventurers could see distinctly for a hundred yards or more ahead of them. Each minute seemed to add to the swiftness and size of the stream, and by the use of his paddle Wabi found that it was constantly deepening, until he could no longer touch bottom. Rod's eyes were ceaselessly on the alert for familiar signs along the shore. He was sure that he knew when they passed the spot where he killed the silver fox, and he called Wabi's attention to it. Then the rocks sped past with increasing swiftness, and as the moon rose higher the three could see where the overflowing torrent sent out little streams that twisted and dashed themselves into leaping foam in the wildness of the chasm beyond the main channel. These increased in number and size as the journey continued, until Mukoki began to feel the influence of their currents and called on Wabi and Rod for assistance. Suddenly Rod gave a muffled shout as they shot past a mass of huge boulders on their right.
“That's where I camped the night I dreamed of the skeletons!” he cried. “I don't know what the stream is like from here on. Be careful!”
Wabi gave a terrific lunge with his paddle and the cone of a black rock hissed past half a canoe length away.
“It's as black as a dungeon ahead, and I can hear rocks!” he shouted. “Bring her in if you can, Muky, bring her in!”
There came the sudden sharp crack of snapping wood and a low exclamation of alarm fell from Mukoki. His paddle had broken at the shaft. In a flash Rod realized what had happened and passed back his own, but that moment's loss of time proved almost fatal. Freed of its guiding hand the birch bark swung broadside to the current, and at the same time Wabi's voice rose in a shrill cry of warning.
“It's not rocks, it's a whirlpool!” he yelled. “The other shore, swing her out, swing her out!”
He dug his own paddle deep down into the racing current and from behind Mukoki exerted his most powerful efforts, but it was too late! A hundred feet ahead the stream tore between two huge rocks as big as houses, and just beyond these Rod caught a glimpse of frothing water churning itself milk-white in the moonlight. But it was only a glimpse. With a velocity that was startling the canoe shot between the rocks, and as a choking sea of spray leaped into their faces Wabigoon's voice came back again in a loud command for the others to hang to the gunwales of their frail craft. For an instant, in which his thoughts seemed to have left him, a roaring din filled Rod's ears; a white, churning mist hid everything but his own arms and clutching hands, and then the birch bark darted with the sudden impetus of a freshly-shot arrow around the jagged edge of the boulder—and he could see again.
Here was the whirlpool! More than once Wabi had told him of these treacherous traps, made by the mountain streams, and of the almost certain death that awaited the unlucky canoe man drawn into their smothering embrace. There was no angry raging of the flood here; at first it seemed to Rod that they were floating almost without motion upon a black, lazy sea that made neither sound nor riffle. Scarce half a dozen canoe lengths away he saw the white center of the maelstrom, and there came to his ears above the dash of the stream between the two great rocks a faint hissing sound that curdled the blood in his veins, the hissing of the treacherous undertow that would soon drag them to their death! In the passing of a thought there flashed into the white youth's mind a story that Mukoki had told him of an Indian who had been lost in one of these whirlpools of the spring floods, and whose body had been tossed and pitched about in its center for more than a week. For the first time the power of speech came to him.