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 there--make us think wrong." He waited for no reply, but darted back to the other trail, with Wabi and Rod close behind him.