See that mountain yonder?
You might take it for a cloud.

It's thirty miles from here! And that lake down there--you might think a rifle-shot would reach it--is five miles away! If a moose or a caribou or a wolf should cross it how you could see him." For a few moments longer the three stood silent, then Wabi and the old Indian returned to the fire to finish the preparation of breakfast, leaving Rod alone in his enchantment.

What unsolved mysteries, what unwritten tragedies, what romance, what treasure of gold that vast North must hold! For a thousand, perhaps a million centuries, it had lain thus undisturbed in the embrace of nature; few white men had broken its solitudes, and the wild things still lived there as they had lived in the winters of ages and ages ago.
The call to breakfast came almost as an unpleasant interruption to Rod.
But it did not shock his appetite as it had his romantic fancies, and he performed his part at the morning meal with considerable credit.

Wabi and Mukoki had already decided that they would not take up the trail again that day but would remain in their present camp until the following morning.

There were several reasons for this delay.
"We can't travel without snow-shoes now," explained Wabi to Rod, "and we've got to take a day off to teach you how to use them.