shallower cleft they felt sure was the one leading to the cache.
Cautiously they turned into the dark mouth of the fissure and grounded
the boat on the pebbles, water-worn and rounded here where the waves
reached them. Overhead the moonlight filtered down among the thick sprays
of the stunted cedars that grew along the rim and even down into the
crack. But the darkness at the bottom was so deep the brothers could
proceed only by feeling their way with both hands and feet. In this
manner they went up over pebbles and angular rock fragments to the narrow
slit in the wall, and squeezed through in pitch blackness to the circular
hollow.
There was moonlight in the pit, but the cache, close under the rock wall,
was in the shadow. So difficult did the boys find it to remove the stones
in the darkness, that they decided to risk lighting a torch. During the
afternoon Blaise had made a couple of torches of spruce and balsam. He
lighted one now and stuck it in a cranny of the rock just above the heap
of stones. By the feeble, flickering and smoky light, the cache was
uncovered. Pushing and hauling the bales through the narrow crack was
difficult and troublesome. The larger ones would not go through, and had
to be unwrapped and reduced to smaller parcels. Even by the dim light of
the torch, the boys could see that the furs were of excellent quality.
Before loading, the bateau had to be pushed out a little way, Blaise
standing in the water to hold it while Hugh piled in the bales. Then both
climbed in and paddled quietly out of the crack.
There was not breeze enough for sailing. Hugh and Blaise were anxious to
get away from the spot where they had found the furs and had heard the
shout, but paddling the heavily laden bateau was slow work. Without a
breeze to fill the sail, they were loth to start across the open lake, so
they kept on along shore to the northeast. When they had put a mile or
more between themselves and the place where they had found the furs, they
would camp and wait for sunrise and a breeze.
Slowly and laboriously they paddled on, close to the high shore. The
calm, moonlit water stretched away on their left. The dark,
forest-crowned rocks, huge, worn and seamed pillars, towered forbiddingly
on the other side. At last the wider view of the water ahead and the
barrenness of the tumbled rocks to the right indicated that they were
reaching the end of the shore along which they had been travelling.
“We’ll land now,” said Hugh, “as soon as we can find a place.”
The abrupt, truncated pillars of rock were not so high here, but were
bordered at the water’s edge with broken blocks and great boulders,
affording little chance of a landing place. By paddling close in,
however, slowly and cautiously to avoid disaster, the boys discovered a
niche between two blocks of rock, with water deep enough to permit
running the boat in. There they climbed out on the rock and secured the
bateau by a couple of turns of the rope around a smaller block. In rough
weather such a landing would have been impossible, but on this still
night there was no danger of the bateau bumping upon the rocks. Farther
along Blaise found a spot where the solid rock shelved down gradually.
Rolling themselves in their blankets, the brothers stretched out on the
hard bed.
The plaintive crying of gulls waked Hugh just as the sun was coming up
from the water, a great red ball in the morning mist. “I don’t like this
place,” he said as he sat up. “We can be seen plainly from the lake.”
“Yes,” Blaise agreed, “but we can see far across the lake. If a boat
comes, we shall see it while it is yet a long way off. I think we need
not fear anything from that direction. No, the only way an enemy can draw
near unseen is from the land, from the woods farther back there.”
“The water is absolutely still,” Hugh went on. “There isn’t a capful of
wind to fill our sail, and we can’t paddle this loaded boat clear across
to the mainland. We must find a better place than this, though, to wait
for a breeze. I am going to look around a bit.”
The lads soon found that they were near the end of a point, a worn,
wave-eaten, rock point, bare except for a few scraggly bushes, clumps of
dwarfed white cedar and such mosses and lichens as could cling to the
surface. Farther back were woods, mostly evergreen. The two felt that
they must find a spot where they could wait for a wind without being
visible from the woods. Yet they wanted to remain where they could watch
the weather and get away at the first opportunity. At the very tip of the
point, the slate-gray rocks were abrupt, slightly overhanging indeed, but
in one spot there lay exposed at the base a few feet of low, shelving,
wave-smoothed shore, which must be under water in rough weather. On this
calm day the lower rock shore was dry. There, in the shelter of the
overhanging masses, the boys would be entirely concealed from the land
side. A little farther along on the end of the point, rose an abrupt,
rounded tower of rock. Between the rock tower and the place they had
selected for themselves was a narrow inlet where the bateau would be
fairly well hidden. They shoved the boat out from between the boulders,
where it had lain safe while they slept, and paddled around to the little
inlet. On the wave-smoothed, low rock shore, they kindled a tiny fire of
dry sticks gathered at the edge of the woods, and hung the kettle from a
pole slanted over the flames from a cranny in the steep rock at the rear.
The wind did not come up as the sun rose higher, as the lads had hoped it
would. The delay was trying, especially to the impetuous Hugh. They had
found the cache, secured the furs and the packet, and had got safely away
with them, only to be stuck here on the end of this point for hours of
idle waiting. Yet even Hugh did not want to start across the lake under
the present conditions. Paddling the bateau had been laborious enough
when it was empty, but now, laden almost to the water-line, the boat was
far worse to handle. Propelling it was not merely hard work, but progress
would be so slow that the journey across to the mainland would be a long
one, with always the chance that the wind, when it did come, might blow
from the wrong quarter. The bateau would not sail against the wind. To
attempt to paddle it against wind and waves would invite disaster.
Sailing the clumsy craft, heavy laden as it was, across the open water
with a fair wind would be quite perilous enough. There was nothing to do
but wait, and this seemed as good a place in which to wait as any they
were likely to find.
XVIII
THE FLEEING CANOE
As the morning advanced, the sun grew hot, beating down on the water and
radiating heat from the rocks. Scarcely a ripple wrinkled the blue
surface of the lake, and the distance was hazy and shimmering. An island
with steep, straight sides, four or five miles northeast of the point,
was plainly visible, but Thunder Cape to the west was so dim it could
barely be discerned. The day was much like the one on which the lads had
come across from the mainland.
Hugh grew more and more restless. Several times he climbed the only
climbable place on the overhanging rock and peeped between the branches
of a dwarfed cedar bush. He could see across to the edge of the woods,
but he discovered nothing to either interest or alarm him. By the time
the sun had passed the zenith, he could stand inaction no longer. He was
not merely restless. He had become vaguely uneasy. The boat was hidden
from his view by the rocks between. In such a lonely place he would have
had no fear for the furs, had it not been for the shot and the call he
and Blaise had heard.
“Someone might slip out of the woods and down to the boat without our
catching a glimpse of him,” Hugh remarked at last. “I’m going over there
to see if everything is all right.”
To reach the boat, he was obliged to climb to his peeping place and pull
himself up the rest of the way, or else go around and across the top of
the steep rocks. He chose the latter route. The boat and furs he found
unharmed. The only trespasser was a gull that had alighted on one of the
bales and was trying with its strong, sharp beak to pick a hole in the
wrapping. He frightened the bird away, then stopped to drink from his
cupped palm.
A low cry from Blaise startled him. He glanced up just in time to see his
brother, who had followed him to the top of the rocks, drop flat.
Curiosity getting the better of caution, Hugh sprang up the slope. One
glance towards the west, and he followed the younger lad’s example and
dropped on his face.
“A canoe! They must have seen us.”
Cautiously Hugh raised his head for another look. The canoe was some
distance away. When he had first glimpsed it, it had been headed towards
the point. Now, to his surprise, it was going in the opposite direction,
going swiftly, paddles flashing in the sun.
“They have turned about, Blaise. Is it possible they didn’t see us?”
“Truly they saw us. My back was that way. I turned my head and there they
were. My whole body was in clear view. Then you came, and they must have
seen you also. They are running away from us.”
“It would seem so indeed, but what do they fear? There are four men in
that canoe, and we are but two.”
“They know not how many we are. They may have enemies on Minong, though I
never heard that any man lived here.”
“Something has certainly frightened them away. They are making good speed
to the west, towards the mainland.”
The boys remained stretched out upon the rock, only their heads raised as
they watched the departing canoe.
“They turn to the southwest now,” Blaise commented after a time. “They go
not to the mainland, but are bound for some other part of Minong.”
“They were bound for this point when we first saw them,” was Hugh’s
reply. “We don’t know what made them change their minds, but we have
cause to be grateful to it whatever——What was that?”
He sprang to his feet and turned quickly.
“Lie down,” commanded Blaise. “They will see you.”
Hugh, unheeding, plunged down to the bateau. It was undisturbed. Not a
living creature was in sight. Yet something rattling down and falling
with a splash into the water had startled him. He looked about for an
explanation. A fresh scar at the top of the slope showed where a piece of
rock had chipped off. Undoubtedly that was what he had heard. His own
foot, as he lay outstretched, had dislodged the loose, crumbling flake.
Reminded of caution, Hugh crawled back up the slope instead of going
upright. The canoe was still in sight going southwest. Both boys remained
lying flat until it had disappeared beyond the low point. Then they
returned to the low shore beneath the overhanging rock. For the present
at least there seemed to be nothing to be feared from that canoe, but
would it return, and where was the man who had fired the shot and later
sent that call ringing through the woods? Did he belong with the canoe
party? Had he gone away with them, or was he, with companions perhaps,
somewhere on the wooded ridges? The boys did not know whether to remain
where they were or go somewhere else.
The weather finally brought them to a decision. All day they had hoped
for a breeze, but when it came it brought with it threatening gray and
white clouds. Rough, dark green patches on the water, that had been so
calm all day, denoted the passing of squalls. Thunder began to rumble
threateningly, and the gray, streaked sky to the north and west indicated
that rain was falling there. The island to the northeast shrank to about
half its former height and changed its shape. It grew dimmer and grayer,
as the horizon line crept gradually nearer.
“Fog,” remarked Blaise briefly.
“It is coming in,” Hugh agreed, “and this is not a good place to be
caught in a thick fog. Shall we go back into the woods?”
“I think we had best take the bateau and go along the other side of this
point. We cannot start for the mainland to-night, and we shall need a
sheltered place for our camp.”
The fog did not seem to be coming in very rapidly, but by the time the
bateau had been shoved off, the island across the water had disappeared.
The breeze came in gusts only and was not available for sailing. So the
lads were obliged to take up their paddles again.
Beyond the tower-like rock there was a short stretch of shelving shore,
followed by abrupt, dark rocks of roughly pillared formation. Then came a
gradual slope, rough, seamed and uneven of surface. It looked indeed as
if composed of pillars, the tops of which had been sliced off with a
downward sweep of the giant Kepoochikan’s knife. The shore ahead was of a
yellowish gray color, as if bleached by the sun, slanting to the water,
with trees growing as far down as they could find anchorage and
sustenance. These sloping rocks were in marked contrast to those of the
opposite side of the point, along which the boys had come the night
before, where the cliffs and ridges rose so abruptly from the lake.
After a few minutes of paddling, the brothers found themselves passing
along a channel thickly wooded to the water-line. The land on the right
was a part of the same long point, but on the left were islands with
short stretches of water between, across which still other islands beyond
could be seen. The fog, though not so dense in this protected channel as
on the open lake, was thickening, and the boys kept a lookout for a
camping place.
When an opening on the left revealed what appeared to be a sheltered bay,
they turned in. Between two points lay two tiny islets, one so small it
could hold but five or six little trees. Paddling between the nearer
point and islet, the boys found themselves in another much narrower
channel, open to the northeast, but apparently closed in the other
direction. Going on between the thickly forested shores,—a dense mass of
spruce, balsam, white cedar, birch and mountain ash,—they saw that what
they had taken for the end of the bay was in reality an almost round
islet so thickly wooded that the shaggy-barked trunks of its big white
cedars leaned far out over the water. The explorers rounded the islet to
find that the shores beyond did not quite come together, leaving a very
narrow opening. Paddling slowly and taking care to avoid the rocks that
rose nearly to the surface and left a channel barely wide enough for the
bateau to pass through, they entered a little landlocked bay, as secluded
and peaceful as an inland pond.
“We couldn’t find a better place,” said Hugh, looking around the wooded
shores with satisfaction, “to wait for the weather to clear. We are well
hidden from any canoe that might chance to come along that outer
channel.”
The little pond was shallow. The boat had to be paddled cautiously to
avoid grounding. Below the thick fringe of trees and alders, the prow was
run up on the pebbles.
“We might as well leave the furs in the boat,” Hugh remarked.
“No.” Blaise shook his head emphatically. “We cannot be sure no one will
come in here. The furs we can hide. We ourselves can take to the woods,
but this heavy bateau we cannot hide.”
“I’m not afraid anyone will find us here.”
“We thought there was no one on Minong at all. Yet we have heard a shot
and a call and have seen a canoe.”
“You’re right. We can’t be too cautious.”
While Hugh unloaded the bales, Blaise went in search of a hiding place.
Returning in a few minutes, he was surprised to find the boat, the prow
of which had just touched the beach, now high and dry on the pebbles for
half its length. Hugh had not pulled the boat up. The water had receded.
“There is a big old birch tree there in the woods and it is hollow,”
Blaise reported. “It has been struck by lightning and is broken. We can
hide the furs there.”
“Won’t squirrels or wood-mice get at them?”
“We will put bark beneath and over them, and we shall not leave them
there long.”
“I hope not surely.”
Blaise lifted a bale and started into the woods. Hugh, with another bale,
was about to follow, when Blaise halted him.
“Walk not too close to me. Go farther over there. If we go the same way,
we shall make a beaten trail that no one could overlook. We must keep
apart and go and come different ways.”
Hugh grasped the wisdom of this plan at once. He kept considerably to the
left of Blaise until he neared the old birch, and on his return followed
still another route. He was surprised to find that the water had come up
again. The pebbles that had been exposed so short a time before were now
under water once more. The bow of the bateau was afloat and he had to
pull it farther up.
“There is a sort of tide in here,” he remarked as Blaise came out of the
woods. “It isn’t a real tide, for it comes and goes too frequently. Do
you know what causes it?”
“No, though I have seen the water come and go that way in some of the
bays of the mainland.”
“It isn’t a true tide, of course,” Hugh repeated, “but a sort of
current.”
Going lightly in their soft moccasins, the two made the trips necessary
to transport the furs. They left scarcely any traces of their passage
that might not have been made by some wild animal. Hugh climbed the big,
hollow tree which still stood firm enough to bear his weight. Down into
the great hole in the trunk he lowered a sheet of birch bark that Blaise
had stripped from a fallen tree some distance away. Then Hugh dropped
down the bales, and put another piece of bark on top. The furs were well
hidden. From the ground no one could see anything unusual about the old
tree.
Returning to the shore, the two pushed off the boat and paddled to
another spot several hundred yards away. There Hugh felled a small poplar
and cut the slender trunk into rollers which he used to pull the heavy
bateau well up on shore where it would be almost hidden by the alders.
Night was approaching and the wooded shores of the little lake were still
veiled in fog. The water was calm and the damp air spicy with the scent
of balsam and sweet with the odor of the dainty pink twin-flowers. On the
whole of the big island the boys could scarcely have found a more
peaceful spot. The woods were so thick there seemed to be no open spaces
convenient for camping, so the brothers kindled their supper fire on the
pebbles above the water-line, and lay down to sleep in the boat.
XIX
THE BAY OF MANITOS
The night passed quietly, unbroken by any sound of beast, bird or man,
until the crying of the gulls woke the sleepers in the fog-gray dawn.
Chilled and stiff, they threw off their damp blankets and climbed out of
the bateau. By dint of much patience and a quantity of finely shredded
birch bark, a slow fire of damp wood was kindled, the flame growing
brighter as the wood dried out.
After he had swallowed his last spoonful of corn, Hugh remarked, “If we
are held here to-day, we must try for food of some kind. We haven’t
hunted or fished since we left the mainland, and our supplies are going
fast.”
Blaise nodded. “We need fire no shots to fish.”
Fishing in the little pond did not appear promising. When the boys
attempted to paddle through the passageway, they ran aground, and were
forced to wait for the water to rise and float the boat. The same
fluctuation they had noticed the day before was still going on. Luck did
not prove good in the narrow channel, and they went on into the wider one
between the long point and the row of islands. The fog was almost gone,
though the sky was still gray. Would the weather permit a start for the
mainland?
Turning to the northeast, they went the way they had come the preceding
afternoon. As they approached the end of the last island, they realized
that this was no time to attempt a crossing. Wind there was now, too much
wind. It came from the northwest, and the lake, a deep green under the
gray sky, was heaving with big waves, their tips touched with foam. The
bateau would not sail against that wind. To try to paddle the
heavily-laden boat across those waves would be the worst sort of folly.
Turning again, they went slowly back through the protected channel, Hugh
wielding the blade while Blaise fished. Luck was still against them.
Either there were no fish in the channel or they were not hungry. On
beyond the entrance to the hiding place, the two paddled. Passing the
abrupt end of an island, they came to a wider expanse of water. They were
still sheltered by the high, wooded ridges to their right, where dark
evergreens and bright-leaved birches rose in tiers. In the other
direction, they could see, between scattered islands, the open lake to
the horizon line. Misty blue hills in the distance ahead, beyond islands
and forested shores, indicated another bay, longer and wider than the one
the _Otter_ had entered.
Blaise, who was paddling now, raised his blade and looked questioningly
at Hugh. The latter answered the unspoken query. “I am for going on. We
have seen no signs of human beings since that canoe, and we need fish.”
Blaise nodded and dipped his paddle again. As they drew near a reef
running out from the end of a small island, Hugh felt his line tighten.
Fishing from the bateau was much less precarious than from a canoe.
Without endangering the balance of the boat, Hugh hauled in his line
quickly, swung in his fish, a lake trout of eight or ten pounds, and
rapped it smartly on the head with his paddle handle. He then gave the
line to Blaise and took another turn at the paddle. In less than ten
minutes, Blaise had a pink-fleshed trout somewhat smaller than Hugh’s.
Then luck deserted them again. Not another fish responded to the lure of
the hook, though they paddled back and forth beside the reef several
times. They went on along the little island and up the bay for another
mile or more without a nibble. It was a wonderful place, that lonely bay,
fascinating in its wild beauty. Down steep, densely wooded ridges, the
deep green spires of the spruces and balsams, interspersed with paler,
round-topped birches, descended in close ranks. Between the ridges, the
clear, transparent water was edged with gray-green cedars, white-flowered
mountain ashes, alders and other bushes, and dotted with wooded islands.
Far beyond the head of the bay blue hills rose against the sky. The
fishing, however, was disappointing, and paddling the bateau was tiresome
work, so the lads turned back.
As they passed close to an island, the younger boy’s quick eye caught a
movement in a dogwood near the water. A long-legged hare went leaping
across an opening.
“If we cannot get fish enough, we will eat rabbit,” said the boy, turning
the boat into a shallow curve in the shore of the little island. “I will
set some snares. If we are delayed another day, we will come in the
morning to take our catch.”
Tying the boat to an overhanging cedar tree, the brothers went ashore. On
the summit of the island, in the narrowest places along a sort of runway
evidently frequented by hares, Blaise set several snares of cedar bark
cord. While the younger brother was placing his last snare, Hugh returned
to the boat. He startled a gull perched upon the prow, and the bird rose
with a harsh cry of protest at being disturbed. Immediately the cry was
repeated twice, a little more faintly each time. Hugh looked about for
the birds that had answered. No other gulls were in sight. Then he
realized that what he had heard was a double echo, unusually loud and
clear. Forgetting caution he let out a loud, “Oh—O.” It came back
promptly, “Oh—o, o—o.”
“Be quiet!” The words were hissed in a low voice, as Blaise leaped out
from among the trees. “Canoes are coming. We must hide.”
He darted back into the woods, Hugh following. Swiftly they made their
way to the summit of the island. The growth was thin along the irregular
rock lane. Blaise dropped down and crawled, Hugh after him. Lying flat in
a patch of creeping bearberry, the younger lad raised his head a little.
Hugh wriggled to his side, and, peeping through a serviceberry bush,
looked out across the water.
The warning had been justified. Two canoes, several men in each, were
coming up the bay. The nearest canoe was not too far away for Hugh to
make out in the center a man who towered, tall and broad, above the
others. The boy remembered the gigantic Indian outlined against the sky,
as his canoe passed in the early dawn. He saw him again, standing
motionless, with folded arms, in the red light of the fire.
Blaise, close beside him, whispered in his ear, “Ohrante himself. What
shall we do?”
If the canoes came down the side of the island where the bateau was,
discovery was inevitable. For a moment, Hugh’s mind refused to work. A
gull circled out over the water, screaming shrilly. Like a ray of light a
plan flashed into the boy’s head.
“Stay here,” he whispered. “Keep still. Remember the ‘Bay of Spirits.’”