XVI THE CACHE
The night being clear, the boys did not trouble to prepare a shelter.They merely cut some balsam branches and spread them smoothly on thebeach. Strange to say, the more superstitious half-breed lad fell asleepimmediately, while the white boy, who had scorned the notion of giantsand manitos, found sleep long in coming. That night seemed to him theloneliest he had ever spent. Camp, on the trip down and up the mainshore, had, to be sure, usually been made far from the camps of othermen. But there _were_ men, both red and white, on that shore. When thelake was not too rough, there was always the chance that the sound ofhuman voices and the dip of paddles might be heard at any time during thenight, as a canoe passed in the starlight.
Here, however, the whole length and breadth of the great island,--whichthe two lads believed even larger than it really is, some fifty miles inlength and twelve or fourteen broad at its widest part,--there lived, sofar as they knew, not one human being. Never before had Hugh felt soutterly lonely, such a small, insignificant human creature in an unknownand unfeeling wilderness of woods, waters and rocks. The island was farmore beautiful and hospitable now than it had appeared when he visited itbefore, but then, almost uncannily lonely and remote though the place hadseemed, he had had the companionship of Baptiste and Captain Bennett andthe rest of the ship's crew.
Yet what was there to fear? It was not likely that Isle Royale containedany especially fierce beasts. There were wolves and lynxes, but they wereskulking, cowardly creatures, and, in the summer at least, must findplentiful prey of rabbits and other small animals. Moose too there wereand perhaps bears, but both were harmless unless attacked and cornered.It was not the thought of any animal enemy that caused Hugh's uneasiness,as he lay listening to the night sounds. His feeling was rather ofapprehension, of dread of some unknown evil that threatened his comradeand himself. He tried to shake off the unreasonable dread, but everythingabout him seemed to serve to intensify the feeling, the low, continuousmurmur of the waves on the rocks, the swishing rustle of the wind in thetrees, the long-drawn, eerie cries of two loons answering one anothersomewhere up the bay, the lonely "hoot-ti-toot" of an owl. Once from thewooded ridges above him, there came with startling clearness the shrillscreech of a lynx. But all these sounds were natural ones, heard manytimes during his adventurous journey. Why, tonight, did they seem to holdsome new and fearful menace?
Disgusted with himself, he resolved to conquer the unreasonable dread.Will power alone could not triumph over his unrest, but physicalweariness won at last and he fell asleep. A brief shower, from the edgeof a passing storm-cloud, aroused him once, but the rain did not lastlong enough to wet his blanket, and he was off to sleep again in a fewminutes.
Hugh woke with a start. Dawn had come, but the little cove was shroudedin white mist. Beside him on the balsam bed, Blaise was sitting upright,his body rigid, his bronze face tense. He was listening intently. Hughfreed his arms from his blanket and raised himself on his elbow. Blaiseturned his head.
"You heard it?" he whispered.
"Something waked me. What was it?"
"A gun shot."
"Impossible!"
"I heard it clearly. I had just waked."
"Near by?"
"Not very far away. Up there somewhere."
Blaise pointed to the now invisible woods above the sheer cliff thatformed the central shore of the cove between the beaches. "It is hard tobe quite sure of the direction in this fog, and there was only one shot."
For some minutes the two lads sat still, listening, but the sound was notrepeated. It seemed incredible that any human being should be so near onthe big island where neither white men nor Indians were ever known tocome intentionally. Hugh was inclined to think Blaise mistaken. Theyounger boy had certainly heard some sharp sound, but Hugh could scarcelybelieve it was the report of a gun.
However, the mere suspicion that any other man might be near by wasenough to make the boys proceed with the greatest caution. Veiled by thefog,--which had been caused by the warm shower falling on the lake duringthe night,--they could be seen only by someone very near at hand, butthere were other ways in which they might be betrayed. The sound of theirvoices or movements, the smell of the smoke from their cooking fire mightreveal their presence. The secret nature of their quest made them anxiousthat their visit to the island should not become known. So they lightedno fire, breakfasting on the cold remains of last night's corn porridgesprinkled with maple sugar. They talked little and in whispers, and tookcare to make the least possible noise.
Having decided to give at least one more day to the search for the furs,the lads climbed the steep slope and made their way to the head of thefissure. Up there the fog was much less thick than down in the cove. Thecrack in the rock had narrowed to a mere slit almost choked with treeroots upon which fallen leaves and litter had lodged. Near the edge, in adepression where there was a little soil, stood a clump of birch sproutsgrowing up about the stump of an old broken tree. In their search forsome blaze or mark that might guide them, the two thought they hadexamined every tree in the vicinity.
That morning, as he was about to pass the clump of birches, Hugh happenedto notice what a rapid growth the sprouts had made that season. The sightof the new growth suggested something to him. He began to pull apart andbend back the little trees to get a better view of the old stump. There,concealed by the young growth, was the mark he sought. A piece of theragged, gray, lichen-scarred bark had been sliced away, and on the bare,crumbly wood had been cut a transverse groove with an arrow point.
Hugh promptly summoned Blaise. The cut in the old stump seemed to provethat the furs might not, after all, have been stolen from the hole in therocks. The arrow pointed directly along the overgrown crack, which thelads traced for fifty or sixty feet farther, when it came abruptly to anend. They had come to a hollow or gully. The crack showed distinctly inthe steep rock wall, but the bottom of the hollow and the oppositegradual slope were deep with soil and thick with growth. The rift, whichwidened at the outer end into a cleft, ran, it was apparent, clearthrough the rock ridge that formed the shore cliff. The searchers had nowreached the lower ground behind that ridge. Which way should they turnnext?
That question was answered promptly. The abrupt face of the rock wall waswell overgrown with green moss and green-gray lichens. In one place theshort, thick growth had been scratched away to expose a strip of the graystone about an inch wide and six or seven inches long. The clean-cutappearance of the scratch seemed to prove that it had been made with aknife or some other sharp instrument. So slowly do moss and lichensspread on a rock surface that such a mark would remain clear and distinctfor one season at least, probably for several years. There was no arrowpoint here, but the scratch was to the left of the crack. The boys turnedunhesitatingly in that direction.
The growth in this low place was dense. They had to push their way amongold, ragged birches and close standing balsams draped with gray beards oflichen which were sapping the trees' life-blood. Everywhere, on the steeprock wall, on each tree trunk, they sought for another sign. For severalhundred yards they found nothing, until they came to a cross gullyrunning back towards the lake. In the very entrance stood a small, brokenbirch. The slender stem was not completely severed, the top of the treeresting on the ground.
"There is our sign," said Blaise as soon as he caught sight of the birch.
"It is only a broken tree," Hugh protested. "I see nothing to show thatit is a sign."
"But I see something," Blaise answered promptly. "First, there is theposition, right here where we need guidance. The tree has been broken sothat it points down that ravine. The break is not old, not weatheredenough to have happened before last winter. Yet it happened before theleaves came out. They were still in the bud. It was in late winter orearly spring that tree was broken."
"Just about the time father must have been on the island," Hughcommented.
Blaise went on with his explanati
on. "What broke the tree? The wind?Sound birches are not easily broken by wind. They sway, they bend,sometimes they are tipped over at the roots. But the stem itself is notbroken unless it is rotten or the storm violent. Here are no signs ofstrong wind. There are no other broken trees near this one."
"That is true," murmured Hugh looking about him.
"Now we will look at the break," Blaise continued confidently. "See, thetrunk is sound, but it has been cut with an axe, cut deep and bent down.And here, look here!" His usually calm voice was thrilling withexcitement. He was pointing to some small cuts in the white bark justbelow the break.
"J. B., father's initials!" cried Hugh.
Blaise laid his finger on his lips to remind his companion that cautionmust still be observed. They had heard no further sound and had seen nosign of a human being, but the half-breed lad had not forgotten the sharpreport that had so startled him in the dawn. It was best to move silentlyand speak with lowered voice.
Blaise led the way down the narrow cross gully, so narrow that where atree grew,--and trees seemed to grow everywhere on this wild island wherethey could push down a root,--there was scarcely room to get by. After afew hundred yards of such going, the ravine began to widen. The wallsbecame higher and so sheer that nothing could cling to them but moss,lichens and sturdy crevice plants. Under foot there was no longer anysoil, only pebbles and broken rock fragments. Ahead, beyond the deepshadow of the cleft, lay sunlit water. This was evidently another of thefissures that ran down through the outer rock ridge to the water,fissures that were characteristic of that stretch of shore.
"We are coming back to the lake through another crack much like the onewhere the old boat lies," said Hugh. "We must be off the trail somewhere.There is no place here to hide furs."
Blaise, who was still ahead, did not answer. He was closely scanning therock wall on either side. A moment later, he paused and gave a littlegrunt of interest or satisfaction.
"What is it?" Hugh asked.
Blaise took another step forward, and pointed to the right hand wall. Anarrow fissure extended from top to bottom. So narrow was the crack thatHugh rather doubted whether he could squeeze into it.
"I will go first, I am smaller," Blaise suggested. "If I cannot gothrough, we shall know that no man has been in there."
Slender and lithe, Blaise found that he could wriggle his way throughwithout much difficulty. The heavier, broader-shouldered Hugh found thetask less easy. He had to go sidewise and for a moment he thought heshould stick fast, but he managed to squeeze past the narrowest spot, tofind himself in an almost round hollow. This hole or pit in the outerridge was perhaps twenty feet in diameter with abrupt rock walls and afloor of boulders and pebbles, among which grew a few hardy shrubs. Itwas open to the sky and ringed at the top with shrubby growth. Hughglanced about him with a keen sense of disappointment. Surely the furswere not in this place.
Blaise, on the other side of a scraggly ninebark bush, seemed to beexamining a pile of boulders and rock fragments. The older boy roundedthe bush, and disappointment gave way to excitement. By what agency hadthose stones been heaped in that particular spot? They had not fallenfrom the wall beyond. The pit had no opening through which waves couldwash. Had that heap been put together by the hand of man? Was it indeed acache?
Without a word spoken, the two lads set about demolishing the stone pile.One after another they lifted each stone and threw it aside. As he rolledaway one of the larger boulders, Hugh could not restrain a little cry. Abit of withered cedar had come to light. With eager energy he flung awaythe remaining stones. There lay revealed a heap of something covered withcedar branches, the flat sprays, withered but still aromatic, woventogether closely to form a tight and waterproof covering. Over and aroundthem, the stones had been heaped to conceal every sprig.
With flying fingers, the boys pulled the sprays apart. There were thebales of furs each in a skin wrapper. The brothers had found the hiddencache and their inheritance. Both lads were surprised at the number ofthe bales. If the pelts were of good quality, no mean sum would berealized by their sale. They would well repay in gold for all the longsearch. Yet, to do the boys justice, neither was thinking just then ofthe worth of the pelts. Their feeling was rather of satisfaction thatthey were really carrying out their father's last command. The long anddifficult search was over, and they had not failed in it.
They lifted the packages from a platform of poles resting on stones. Thewhole cache had been cleverly constructed. No animal could tear apart thebales, and, even in the severest storm, no water could reach them. Overthem the branches had formed a roof strong enough to keep the top stonesfrom pressing too heavily upon the furs.
"But where is the packet?" cried Hugh. "It must be inside one of thebales, but which one I wonder."
"I think it is this one," Blaise replied.
The package he was examining seemed to be just like the others, exceptthat into the rawhide thong that bound it had been twisted a bit ofscarlet wool ravelled from a cap or sash. Blaise would have untied thethong, but the impatient Hugh cut it, and stripped off the wrapping. Thebale contained otter skins of fine quality. Between two of the pelts wasa small, flat packet. It was tied with a bit of cedar cord and sealedwith a blotch of pitch into which had been pressed the seal of the ringHugh now wore.
"Shall we open this here and now, Blaise?" Hugh asked.
"That is for you to say, my brother. You are the elder."
"Then I think we had best open it at once."
Hugh broke the seal and was about to untie the cord, when from somewhereabove the rim of the pit, there rang out a loud, long-drawn call,"Oh-eye-ee, oh-eye-ee-e." It was not the cry of an animal. It was a humanvoice.