While the others were getting things in readiness for resuming the march
the next day Tom began an investigation. He had at first thought that
the mysterious noises of the night had been caused by their old enemy,
but some reflection made him believe that he was mistaken.
In the first place the thief, having had the good fortune to have his
trail wiped out by the snow, was not likely to be foolish enough to come
back and leave a fresh one. In the second, he was probably aware that
his first attempt had failed to scare the boys off his track. At any
rate, his continued haste along the trail appeared to conduce to such a
belief.
Tom had noticed that the white object which swooped down on old Joe,
scaring him almost into a fit, was a big white owl, in all probability
bewildered and blinded by the fire glow. He had observed, also, that the
mysterious noises appeared to come from the old hut, and the strange
“booming” sounds, as nearly as he could make out, had also emanated from
the same quarter.
The hut, then, appeared to be the logical place in which to look for the
origin of the series of happenings that had so alarmed the venerable and
superstitious Joe Picquet.
The first thing that Tom noticed when he entered the hut was something
white lying on the hearthstone of the chimney. On closer inspection this
proved to be the body of an Arctic hare. It was badly mangled and torn,
as if something had been eating it. Tom stooped and peered up the
chimney.
“Who-oo-oo-oo!” he shouted, at the same time beating the sides of the
smoke shaft with a stick that he had selected from a pile of firewood
laid in by the former occupant of the ruined hut.
His voice rang up the chimney like the noise of a train in a tunnel. At
the same instant there came a thunderous booming sound and the rush and
roar of wings. Tom had just time to dodge back before there came
flopping and scratching and squeaking down the chimney the body of a
huge white owl.
Tom fell upon it, but before he could secure the bird it had dug into
his arm with beak and talons, and then, with a weird shriek, blundered
across the hut and out through an unglazed window into the open air.
“Gone!” exclaimed Tom as he saw this. “And,” regretfully, “it would have
made a bully trophy stuffed, too. However, the mystery of the Flying
Wolves is explained. That booming sound was made by the flapping of the
owl’s wings in the wide chimney as it flew down there with that white
hare it had caught. I’ve heard that chimney swallows make the same
booming in chimneys at home as they enter and leave their nests.
“As for the screams and shrieks, the cries of that poor hare explains
that easily enough. Naturally, they sounded louder and as if they were
up in the air, proceeding as they did from the top of the chimney. The
rest of the mystery must be laid to old Joe’s imagination, which appears
to be in first-class working order.”
Tom couldn’t help giving mischievous glances at Joe as, over their
breakfast, he told the others the result of his investigations. But the
old man’s face was scornful as Tom proceeded. When the boy had
concluded, Joe, who had patiently heard him out, had his say. It was
brief and to the point.
“You only theenk. Joe Picquet _know_. Many men know ’bout Loups
Galoups—c’est sufficient.”
Tom saw that the old man was not in the least convinced that the noises
were not of supernatural origin. So hard is it to shake superstitious
beliefs, especially in the case of a man like old Joe, who had been born
and brought up in the wilds, and who rarely came into contact with
cities or life as it was beyond the wilderness.
They came to Otter Lake a few hours after their early start. On the
banks of the lake they found a party consisting of two families of
Indians. They were having a sort of carouse. The bucks had had the good
fortune to kill three deer the day before. As is the custom with the
Indians, the occasion was being observed by a celebration.
The Indians would not move on again till all the meat had been eaten or
wasted. They greeted the newcomers with unusual cordiality, and the
squaws threw big lumps of raw meat to the dogs, which the mamelukes
gulped down in great swallows and then yapped and barked for more.
They insisted on the party halting to eat with them and partake of the
unaccustomed plenty of the camp. This Joe was the more willing to do as
he guessed that from the Indians he might get some news of the fugitive.
But in their present mood the Indians were giving all their time to
jollity of a decidedly rough character, and Joe knew better than to
offend them by talking business until the time was ripe.
While they waited to eat, the squaws bustled about collecting wood. The
boys hated to see women thus employed, but they knew that they dare not
offer to do it; so they sat silent while old Joe and the Indians smoked
and talked. The Indians were telling of the great hunt of the three
deer, enlarging, as is their custom, every little detail till the story
stretched out to endless lengths.
Then they discussed dogs, a topic of endless interest in the North,
where dogs are infinitely more valuable than horses, and where
oftentimes a life, or many lives, may depend on their gameness and
reliability. This topic exhausted, they turned to the weather.
In a land where so much depends upon its moods, the weather is a subject
of vital interest. The Indians told of the big snows they had seen, and
old Joe Picquet related his similar experiences, and so the chat ran
along till the squaws announced that everything was ready for them to
eat.
They sat about the fire in the drafty tepee, eating off bits of birch
bark. That is, the white men did. The Indians used their fingers. At
last the meal was finished, pipes lighted, and old Joe felt at liberty
to ask the questions he was dying to put.
At first the Indians shook their heads. They had seen no white man. But
then one of the squaws interjected a remark. Wild Bird, another of the
squaws, had seen that very morning, while gathering wood to the north,
the trail of a sled. She had examined it and had found by it an odd
object. She had brought that object into camp. Would she produce it? She
would.
From a corner of the tepee the squaw shyly produced her find. The boys
could have uttered a cry of joy as they saw what it was.
The fag end of a yellow cigarette! Assuredly, then, the trail Wild Bird
had seen was that of the fugitive. It began about two miles to the north
by a tall “Rampick” (dead tree), near which he had camped, judging by
the remains of a fire, and from which he had hacked off some dead limbs.
And then Wild Bird herself gave another bit of evidence to clinch the
identification. She had remarked the man’s funny snowshoes. Never had
she seen any like them.
“Boosh! Mes garçons! We have found zee trail once more! Bien!”
Old Joe’s face beamed. But although they were anxious to hurry on, they
could not leave the friendly Indians hastily without a severe breach of
etiquette. But at length the social code of the tribe was satisfied,
and, with well-fed dogs in the traces, they got under way once more.
Wild Bird and another Indian went with them part of the way, so as to be
sure that they would not miss the spot at which they were to pick up the
trail.
At last they reached the gaunt “Rampick,” good-byes were said, and they
had the satisfaction once more of following the two familiar parallel
lines in the snow and beside them the tracks of the odd-shaped
snowshoes. The sky was gloomy and gray, but the Indians had said there
would be no more snow.
They journeyed on through a melancholy land all that afternoon. That
fall there had been a forest fire, and the blackened stumps of the trees
that had not fallen stood out, etched in ebony black, against the dreary
gray sky.
It was a pensive and melancholy land. But through it all, to brighten
the trail like a streak of vivid scarlet, was the track of the sled, the
sled on which reposed the stolen black fox skin. And beside it, as if to
assure them they were on the right track, lay at intervals little
yellow-wrapped rolls of tobacco.
“Zee time ees not long now,” declared old Joe, when they camped that
night on the edge of a gloomy little lake tucked away between two rocky
ridges.