CHAPTER IX


UP THE OMBABIKA

For a few moments after Mukoki's remarkable discovery the three stood
speechless. Wabigoon stared as if he could not bring himself to
believe the evidence of his eyes. Rod was quivering with the old,
thrilling excitement that had first come to him in the cabin where
they had found the skeletons and the buckskin bag with its precious
nuggets, and Mukoki's face was a study. The thin, long fingers which
held the two pieces of the gold bullet trembled, which was an unusual
symptom in the old pathfinder. It was he who broke the silence, and
his words gave utterance to the question which had rushed into the
heads of the two young hunters.

"Who shoot gold bullets at bear?"

And to this question there was, for the time, absolutely no answer. To
tell who shot that bullet was impossible. But why was it used?

Wabigoon had taken the parts of the yellow ball and was weighing them
in the palm of his hand.

"It weighs an ounce," he declared.

"Twenty dollars' worth of gold!" gasped Rod, as if he lacked breath
to express himself. "Who in the wide world is shooting twenty dollar