With which sledge was Minnetaki? They looked at one another in
bewilderment.

Mukoki pointed to the trail into the northeast.

"We must fin' sign--sign of Minnetaki. You take that--I take this!"

Rod started off at a dog trot over the easternmost trail. At the
farther side of the opening, where the sledge had plunged into a clump
of hazel, he suddenly stopped, and for a second time that morning
a thrilling cry escaped his lips. On a projecting thorny twig,
glistening full in the sun, there fluttered a long, silken strand of
hair. He reached out for it, but Wabi caught his hand, and in another
moment Mukoki had joined them. Gently he took the raven tress between
his fingers, his deep-set eyes glaring like red coals of fire. It was
a strand of Minnetaki's beautiful hair, not for a moment did one of
them doubt that; but what held them most, what increased the horror in
their eyes, was the quantity of it! Suddenly Mukoki gave it a gentle
pull and the tress slipped free of the twig.

In the next breath he uttered the only expression of supreme disgust
in his vocabulary a long-drawn, hissing sound which he used only in
those moments when his command of English was entirely inadequate to
the situation.

"Minnetaki on other sledge!"

He showed the end of the strand to his young companions.

"See--hair been cut! No pulled out by, twig. Woonga hang heem