THE MEETING ON THE RIVER.
When Sandy awoke on the following morning, his joy was unbounded. Taking
one look at Toma, he gasped and daubed frantically at his sleep-stained
eyes. Both the young Indian and Dick laughed at the young Scotchman’s
astonishment.
“How did you get here?” asked Sandy, finding his voice.
“I swim across the river,” grinned Toma.
“What’s that! Across the river!” Sandy’s eyes grew wide.
“Yes, that’s what I do. River cold and swift, but me, I think pretty
sure I make it.”
“He arrived here in the middle of the night,” explained Dick. “It was
about an hour after you woke me up to relieve you for guard duty.”
Sandy looked out at the river that swirled and rolled along northward.
At the point where Toma had crossed, it was over half a mile wide. Its
waters were swift and as cold as ice. A remarkable feat even for an
expert.
All the boys were happy and in high spirits when they embarked in the
canoe an hour later and resumed their journey upstream. Though it was
hard work to paddle incessantly against the strong current, it was
nevertheless a welcome relief after the days they had spent in
travelling on foot. All day they sweated at their task. They were miles
away from Wolf Brennan and his party by the time that night fell. They
were turning in towards shore to make camp, when Toma, who was sitting
in the bow, suddenly sang out:
“Canoe! Canoe! I see ’em canoe!”
Instantly Dick and Sandy straightened up, their eyes almost staring from
their heads.
“Where?” they demanded in one voice.
“Oh, I see it now!” Sandy shouted. “Hold into mid-stream Toma, so we’ll
meet him. Small canoe. Just one man. Wonder who it is?”
The canoe and its lone occupant drifted toward them. Closer and closer
it came. The man, industriously plying his paddle, took form. Dick’s
heart leaped and he suddenly went weak all over. He recognized the garb
of that lonely traveller. No mistaking that broad-brimmed hat and
scarlet coat. A mounted policeman! All of the boys had become so
breathlessly interested in trying to determine the identity of the
occupant of the canoe that he was within two hundred yards of them
before any of them spoke again. Then, suddenly Dick raised his paddle
and waved a frantic, hilarious greeting.
“Corporal Rand!” he shrieked.
The policeman had never received a more spontaneous and noisy welcome.
The three chums howled and shrieked. They rent the air with their
huzzas. In the stern, Sandy laughingly reached out, caught the prow of
Rand’s canoe and both crafts floated down stream nearly fifty yards
while they exchanged greetings. Then, as if moved by a common impulse
they swerved to the left and presently disembarked at the edge of a
sand-bar projecting out from shore.
“I never expected to meet any of you here,” stated the corporal, pulling
up his canoe. “Thought you were all over at Fort Good Faith. In fact, I
sent a letter over there less than a week ago, asking you to meet me at
Half Way House.”
“You did?” gasped Dick and Sandy.
“Yes, and I was disappointed when you didn’t show up.”
Dick’s expression was one of amazement.
“Didn’t Factor Frazer tell you where we had gone?” he demanded.
“Why no. Did he know?”
“Certainly he knew.” There was an angry quaver in Dick’s voice. “He was
the one that sent us up here.”
“Did you let him know that you expected us from Fort Good Faith?”
inquired Sandy.
The corporal nodded.
“And he said nothing?”
“Not a word.”
In jerky, angry sentences, Dick told Corporal Rand of the dinosaur and
of the incidents leading up to their journey to the island of the
granite shaft. Out of breath at last, he paused and Sandy took up the
narrative where he left off, relating in the minutest detail everything
that had happened subsequent to their departure from the island. Rand
listened without once asking a question or making a comment. Even after
Sandy had finished, he sat silent and thoughtful, the toe of one boot
tracing patterns in the sand.
“Why don’t you laugh?” asked Sandy.
Corporal Rand straightened up. “Laugh? What for?”
“Why, at the beautiful joke Factor Frazer played upon us.”
Corporal Rand’s brows knit and his mouth tightened.
“It doesn’t impress me as being particularly amusing.”
“What do you make of it all?”
The policeman raised his eyes toward the young Scotchman and half
smiled.
“I’ll be perfectly frank. I haven’t the least idea.”
“Can you imagine what we have done to incur their enmity—Factor
Frazer’s, Wolf Brennan’s and Toby McCallum’s?”
“No.”
“When I first saw you, do you know what I thought?” inquired the young
leader of the trio.
“No. What did you think, Dick?”
“I thought perhaps you had guessed that we were in trouble and had come
to our rescue.”
Corporal Rand shook his head. “No, I am on patrol duty.”
“But why did you wish to meet us at Half Way House?” persisted Dick.
“That’s a different story. The police have another little job for you.”
“What is it?” the boys inquired in unison.
“Wanted you to go over to Caribou Lake to investigate a rumor.”
The three boys gathered more closely around the policeman.
“What rumor?” asked Dick.
Corporal Rand rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“It concerns a certain Conroy Miller, a prospector who has been working
up in that section. Miller has not been heard from since last fall. He
sent word down to Ford Laird by an Indian that he proposed to trap all
winter in the vicinity of Caribou Lake, where he had staked out a few
mining claims, and asked Factor Goodwin to send out a quantity of
supplies. On the first of December last year the Indian, who had brought
in the message, and several companions with dog teams, took the supplies
out to Miller and afterward returned, reporting that Miller had received
them and wished to thank the factor for his kindly co-operation.
“Well, a few weeks ago a trapper, a German named Lutz, reported to the
Fort McKenzie detachment that he had passed through the Caribou Lake
region and had stopped at Miller’s cabin. He reported that the cabin was
well stocked with provisions but that no one was there. In fact, there
was every evidence that the cabin had not been tenanted for months.
Dishes were on the table just as Miller had left them. In one corner of
the room was a quantity of green fur and a pile of traps. Dust had
settled everywhere, proving conclusively that Miller had not been at
home for a long time.”
Corporal Rand paused for a moment, then resumed.
“Lutz, who is an honorable fellow in every way, became frightened,
jumped to the conclusion that Miller had met with an accident and
searched the vicinity in an attempt to find the prospector’s body.
Unsuccessful in this, he proceeded straight to McKenzie Barracks and
reported the matter to us.”
“Are you on your way there now?” Dick cut in.
“Yes. I wanted you boys to go along to help search for the body. When
you failed to meet me at Half Way House, I started on alone.”
“You hold to the Lutz theory then, that he met with an accident while
trapping?” interrogated Sandy.
“We have come to no definite conclusions yet. We may find his body there
and we may not. If we don’t, I propose to follow up another lead, that
he has met with foul play.”
“Foul play?” cried Dick.
“Yes, it is possible. There are many rumors floating around about him.
Nothing tangible yet. However, there is one thing we have made a note
of. On April third, an Indian named Henri Karek claims he met Miller on
the trail between Thunder River and Lynx Lake. He stated further that
Miller was in the best of health and carried a good grub supply. His
destination, he told the Indian, was Fort Laird.”
“Wonder if the Indian really met him,” mused Dick.
“He met someone by the name of Miller,” replied the corporal, “but
whether it was our man or not is a debatable question. Since then other
stories have been circulated, most of them, I fear, without foundation.
If it was really Conroy Miller that Karek met on the trail, he never
reached his destination. That much I have found out by making inquiries
at Fort Laird.”
The corporal paused abruptly, regarding the boys through half closed
lids. Dick wondered what he was thinking about.
“How long since you left the dinosaur’s island?” the policeman suddenly
inquired.
“Just two weeks ago today,” Sandy replied.
“You’ve had an unusual experience. Went hungry, didn’t you? Looks as if
you’d been living on a diet of fish and no mistake. Honestly, Dick, I
believe you’ve lost ten pounds.”
“I think I have,” came the unconcerned rejoinder.
“Wolf and McCallum will have to answer for this some day, but I don’t
want to do anything now. We’ll give them plenty of rope and see if they
won’t eventually hang themselves. Now about that pseudo-wildman you
spoke of, I can’t seem to place him—unless it’s old Bill Willison, an
eccentric trapper who used to live in the vicinity of Fort Laird.”
“That’s who it is!” Dick exclaimed. “I remember now. They called him
Willison.”
“Too bad he’s fallen into their net. He’s not a vicious character and
would harm no one if left alone. The old man is as rugged as the hills
and they say as old as Methuselah. If he has joined Brennan’s party, it
was under compulsion. Of that I feel sure. No doubt, the canoe you have
belongs to him.”
“Does the old man wander around sometimes just dressed in furs and
without any shoes or moccasins?”
Rand laughed. “Yes. The other clothes you saw him in, he wears only when
he goes to a trading post for supplies. In his own natural habitat, old
Willison is almost as wild as he looks.”
“Then Brennan and McCallum sent him to frighten us?” asked Sandy.
“Undoubtedly.”
Toma edged closer, waiting for a chance to break into the conversation.
Corporal Rand noted his look.
“Yes, Toma, what is it?” he asked kindly.
The young Indian put his hand to his stomach and grinned.
“If you got some tea, corporal,” he hinted, “I like ’em get your kettle
and put some water over the fire. No taste tea for over two weeks.”
“Just fish and rabbits,” grunted Sandy.
“And don’t forget the clams and porcupine,” appended Dick.