XVIII THE FLEEING CANOE
As the morning advanced, the sun grew hot, beating down on the water andradiating heat from the rocks. Scarcely a ripple wrinkled the bluesurface of the lake, and the distance was hazy and shimmering. An islandwith steep, straight sides, four or five miles northeast of the point,was plainly visible, but Thunder Cape to the west was so dim it couldbarely be discerned. The day was much like the one on which the lads hadcome across from the mainland.
Hugh grew more and more restless. Several times he climbed the onlyclimbable place on the overhanging rock and peeped between the branchesof 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 timethe sun had passed the zenith, he could stand inaction no longer. He wasnot merely restless. He had become vaguely uneasy. The boat was hiddenfrom his view by the rocks between. In such a lonely place he would havehad no fear for the furs, had it not been for the shot and the call heand Blaise had heard.
"Someone might slip out of the woods and down to the boat without ourcatching a glimpse of him," Hugh remarked at last. "I'm going over thereto see if everything is all right."
To reach the boat, he was obliged to climb to his peeping place and pullhimself up the rest of the way, or else go around and across the top ofthe steep rocks. He chose the latter route. The boat and furs he foundunharmed. The only trespasser was a gull that had alighted on one of thebales and was trying with its strong, sharp beak to pick a hole in thewrapping. He frightened the bird away, then stopped to drink from hiscupped palm.
A low cry from Blaise startled him. He glanced up just in time to see hisbrother, who had followed him to the top of the rocks, drop flat.Curiosity getting the better of caution, Hugh sprang up the slope. Oneglance towards the west, and he followed the younger lad's example anddropped on his face.
"A canoe! They must have seen us."
Cautiously Hugh raised his head for another look. The canoe was somedistance away. When he had first glimpsed it, it had been headed towardsthe 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 theywere. My whole body was in clear view. Then you came, and they must haveseen you also. They are running away from us."
"It would seem so indeed, but what do they fear? There are four men inthat canoe, and we are but two."
"They know not how many we are. They may have enemies on Minong, though Inever heard that any man lived here."
"Something has certainly frightened them away. They are making good speedto the west, towards the mainland."
The boys remained stretched out upon the rock, only their heads raised asthey watched the departing canoe.
"They turn to the southwest now," Blaise commented after a time. "They gonot 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'sreply. "We don't know what made them change their minds, but we havecause 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 aliving creature was in sight. Yet something rattling down and fallingwith a splash into the water had startled him. He looked about for anexplanation. A fresh scar at the top of the slope showed where a piece ofrock had chipped off. Undoubtedly that was what he had heard. His ownfoot, as he lay outstretched, had dislodged the loose, crumbling flake.
Reminded of caution, Hugh crawled back up the slope instead of goingupright. The canoe was still in sight going southwest. Both boys remainedlying flat until it had disappeared beyond the low point. Then theyreturned to the low shore beneath the overhanging rock. For the presentat least there seemed to be nothing to be feared from that canoe, butwould it return, and where was the man who had fired the shot and latersent that call ringing through the woods? Did he belong with the canoeparty? Had he gone away with them, or was he, with companions perhaps,somewhere on the wooded ridges? The boys did not know whether to remainwhere they were or go somewhere else.
The weather finally brought them to a decision. All day they had hopedfor a breeze, but when it came it brought with it threatening gray andwhite clouds. Rough, dark green patches on the water, that had been socalm all day, denoted the passing of squalls. Thunder began to rumblethreateningly, and the gray, streaked sky to the north and west indicatedthat rain was falling there. The island to the northeast shrank to abouthalf 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 becaught 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 thispoint. We cannot start for the mainland to-night, and we shall need asheltered place for our camp."
The fog did not seem to be coming in very rapidly, but by the time thebateau had been shoved off, the island across the water had disappeared.The breeze came in gusts only and was not available for sailing. So thelads 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 agradual slope, rough, seamed and uneven of surface. It looked indeed asif composed of pillars, the tops of which had been sliced off with adownward sweep of the giant Kepoochikan's knife. The shore ahead was of ayellowish gray color, as if bleached by the sun, slanting to the water,with trees growing as far down as they could find anchorage andsustenance. These sloping rocks were in marked contrast to those of theopposite side of the point, along which the boys had come the nightbefore, where the cliffs and ridges rose so abruptly from the lake.
After a few minutes of paddling, the brothers found themselves passingalong a channel thickly wooded to the water-line. The land on the rightwas a part of the same long point, but on the left were islands withshort stretches of water between, across which still other islands beyondcould be seen. The fog, though not so dense in this protected channel ason the open lake, was thickening, and the boys kept a lookout for acamping 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 itcould hold but five or six little trees. Paddling between the nearerpoint and islet, the boys found themselves in another much narrowerchannel, open to the northeast, but apparently closed in the otherdirection. Going on between the thickly forested shores,--a dense mass ofspruce, balsam, white cedar, birch and mountain ash,--they saw that whatthey had taken for the end of the bay was in reality an almost roundislet so thickly wooded that the shaggy-barked trunks of its big whitecedars leaned far out over the water. The explorers rounded the islet tofind that the shores beyond did not quite come together, leaving a verynarrow opening. Paddling slowly and taking care to avoid the rocks thatrose nearly to the surface and left a channel barely wide enough for thebateau to pass through, they entered a little landlocked bay, as secludedand peaceful as an inland pond.
"We couldn't find a better place," said Hugh, looking around the woodedshores with satisfaction, "to wait for the weather to clear. We are wellhidden from any canoe that might chance to come along that outerchannel."
The little pond was shallow. The boat had to be paddled cautiously toavoid grounding. Below the thick fringe of trees and alders, the prow wasrun 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 willcome in here. The furs we can hide. We ourselves can take to the w
oods,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 shotand 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 prowof which had just touched the beach, now high and dry on the pebbles forhalf 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 canhide 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 themthere 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 keepapart and go and come different ways."
Hugh grasped the wisdom of this plan at once. He kept considerably to theleft of Blaise until he neared the old birch, and on his return followedstill another route. He was surprised to find that the water had come upagain. The pebbles that had been exposed so short a time before were nowunder water once more. The bow of the bateau was afloat and he had topull it farther up.
"There is a sort of tide in here," he remarked as Blaise came out of thewoods. "It isn't a real tide, for it comes and goes too frequently. Doyou know what causes it?"
"No, though I have seen the water come and go that way in some of thebays of the mainland."
"It isn't a true tide, of course," Hugh repeated, "but a sort ofcurrent."
Going lightly in their soft moccasins, the two made the trips necessaryto transport the furs. They left scarcely any traces of their passagethat 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 intothe great hole in the trunk he lowered a sheet of birch bark that Blaisehad stripped from a fallen tree some distance away. Then Hugh droppeddown the bales, and put another piece of bark on top. The furs were wellhidden. From the ground no one could see anything unusual about the oldtree.
Returning to the shore, the two pushed off the boat and paddled toanother spot several hundred yards away. There Hugh felled a small poplarand cut the slender trunk into rollers which he used to pull the heavybateau 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 stillveiled in fog. The water was calm and the damp air spicy with the scentof balsam and sweet with the odor of the dainty pink twin-flowers. On thewhole of the big island the boys could scarcely have found a morepeaceful spot. The woods were so thick there seemed to be no open spacesconvenient for camping, so the brothers kindled their supper fire on thepebbles above the water-line, and lay down to sleep in the boat.