noon
The morning was one of those rare gifts of budding spring , warm and redolent with the sweetness of new life , and its beauty acted as a tonic on the three adventurers . Their fears of the day before were gone , and with song and whistle and cheery voice they began the descent of the mountain . Mukoki went on ahead of Rod and Wabigoon with his pack , and the two boys had not made more than two of the six miles in the portage across the plain when he met them again , returning for his second load . By noon the canoe and its contents were safely at the creek , and the gold hunters halted until after dinner . The little stream across which Rod had easily leaped without wetting his feet a few weeks before had swollen into a fair-sized river , and in places its searching waters had formed tiny lakes . Unlike the Ombabika , sweeping down from its mountain heights , there was but little current here , a fact that immensely pleased Mukoki and his companions . `` We near mak ' cabin to-night , '' said the old Indian .