XXII BLAISE FOLLOWS HUGH'S TRAIL
Blaise had no difficulty finding the place where Hugh had gone into thewoods. The white boy thought he had been careful about leaving a trail,but to the half-breed lad the indications were plain enough. Most of thetracks were such as might have been made by any large animal, but Blaiseknew Hugh had landed at this spot intending to go directly to the ridgetop. The younger boy was confident that trampled undergrowth, prints inthe leaf mould, freshly broken branches, were all signs of his brother'spassage.
At first he followed the trail easily, but the long northern twilight waswaning. As the darkness gathered in the woods, tracking grew increasinglydifficult. Blaise had no wish to attract attention by lighting a torch.As he penetrated the thick growth, he was not only unable to find Hugh'strail, but was obliged sometimes to feel his own way and was in gravedoubt whether he was going aright. Coming out into a more open spot,where several trees had fallen, he examined, as well as he could in thedim light, the moss-covered trunks for some sign that Hugh had climbedover them. A fresh break where the decayed wood had crumbled away underfoot, a patch of bruised moss, the delicate fruiting stalks broken andcrushed, were enough to convince him that he was still on the righttrack.
Alternately losing the trail and finding it again, he came to the summitof the ridge. Crossing the top, he found himself on the rim of the cliff,but not in the same spot where his brother had come out. He had missedHugh's trail on the last upward slope, and was now a hundred feet or moreto the left of the projecting block of rock. For a few minutes Blaisestood looking about him. He glanced out over the water, noting that thesky was partly cloud covered. He could make out the low point, and herealized that the rock shore with the fissures must lie almost directlybelow him. The twin coves, where he and Hugh had camped, could not be farto the left. Blaise was not concerned just now with either place, he wasmerely obeying the Indian instinct to note his whereabouts and to takehis bearings.
The lad was at a loss how to proceed. That Hugh had reached the rim ofthe ridge somewhere along here seemed more than probable. Where had hegone then? Blaise could scarcely believe that his elder brother hadattempted to climb down that abrupt descent. If he had gone down thereand through the woods and over the rocks to the water, he could have gotno better view of the open lake,--and Hugh had been in haste. No, he hadcertainly not gone down there of his own accord. If he had started backthe way he had come, what had happened to him? Blaise shook his head inperplexity. Of only one thing was he sure. Some disaster had overtakenHugh. Had he made a misstep and plunged down the cliff, or had Ohrantesomething to do with his disappearance?
The first thing to do, Blaise decided, was to search along the ridge topfor some further sign of Hugh or of what had befallen him. He turned tothe right and made his way along as close to the edge as he could,stooping down every few paces to seek for some clue. The night waslighter now, for the moon had come out from behind the clouds. When hereached the spot just above the projecting rocks, Blaise stopped still.There was no need to search for signs here, they were quite plain. Themoon shone down on the little open space where Hugh and the strangeIndian had confronted one another. It was clear to the half-breed boythat there had been a struggle. The gray caribou moss was crushed andtrampled and torn up by the roots. A branch of a little jackpine on theedge of the opening showed a fresh break and hanging from that branch wasa torn scrap of deerskin. But that was not all. Lying on the moss, inplain sight in the moonlight, was a small, dark object, a bit of steelsuch as was commonly used with a piece of flint for fire making. Blaisepicked up the steel. It was the one Hugh carried, beyond doubt.
What did those marks of struggle mean? They were too far back to indicatethat Hugh had lost his footing and slipped over the edge, seizing thetree to keep himself from falling. No, that was quite impossible, for thejackpine grew at least ten feet from the rim of the cliff. Had Hughfought with some animal? Blaise knew of no animal likely, at that seasonof the year, to make an unprovoked attack upon a man. He felt sure thatHugh had too much sense to strike first with knife or hatchet at a bearor moose. Moreover if an animal had slain him it would scarcely havecarried him away. Every indication pointed to an encounter, not with abeast, but with a man. Hugh must have come across Ohrante or some of hisfollowers. Had they killed him or taken him prisoner? If they had killedhim they would not have troubled to take away his body. They would havetaken his scalp and gone on their way,--unless of course they had thrownhim over the cliff. Blaise looked down the abrupt descent, now bathed inmoonlight. Should he seek down there for Hugh or in some other direction?He decided to look around a little more before attempting to climb down.
Almost immediately he found further traces. Beyond the jackpine morecrushed moss and broken bushes and trampled undergrowth showed plainlythat someone, more than one man probably, had gone that way not manyhours before, had gone boldly and confidently, careless of leaving atrail. Blaise dropped on his knees to make a closer examination. Themoonlight helped him, and he soon came to the conclusion, from the shapeof a footprint impressed clearly in a bit of loose earth, that one man atleast had gone in that direction, whether he had come that way or not.The print was too large for Hugh's foot, but, a little farther on, Blaisefound another smaller track that he thought might be Hugh's. It pointedthe same way as the larger print.
The beginning of the trail was now plain, but could he follow it in thedarkness of the woods? He must try anyway. He would go as far as hecould, taking care not to lose the tracks.
Blaise did not succeed in following far. No longer was he aided by anyknowledge of the general direction those he was pursuing would be likelyto take. Under the trees the moonlight was of little assistance. He soonlost the tracks and was compelled to go back to the starting point. Hetried again and lost the trail a second time. A white boy, in his anxietyand impatience, would probably have persisted in the hopeless attempt,and would have lost the trail and himself. But Blaise was part Indian.Anxious though he was over Hugh's fate, he knew when to wait as well aswhen to go forward. By daylight he could doubtless find the trail easily,and could cover in a few minutes ground that in darkness might take himhours, if he could find his way over it at all. He seated himself on acushion of dry caribou moss near the rim of the ridge to wait,sleeplessly and watchfully.
Dawn came at last. When the light was strong enough to make it possibleto find his way through the woods, Blaise again took up the trail. Thetracks he had started to follow and had lost in the first bit of densegrowth, led him, not through, but around the thick place, into a sort ofopen rock lane bordered with trees and running along the ridge top. Tohis great surprise, when he reached the end of the open stretch, he cameupon a clearly defined trail. It was not merely a track made by one ortwo men coming and going once. It gave evidence of having been travelleda number of times. The soft moccasins of the Indian do not wear a path asquickly as the boots of the white man, but this trail was well enoughtrodden to be followed easily. No blazes marked the trees and no clearinghad been done other than the breaking or hacking off of an occasionaltroublesome branch. The men who made that trail had gone around theobstacles, instead of cutting through or removing them, but any white manwho knew anything of woods' running could have followed it.
The half-breed boy hastened along without hesitation, scarcely thinkingof the trail itself, but with eyes and ears open for signs of other humanbeings. That travelled way must lead, he felt sure, to some more or lesspermanent camp. Had Hugh fallen into Ohrante's hands or into those ofsome tribe of permanent inhabitants of Minong? Blaise hoped heartily thatit might be the latter. Even if they were inclined to be hostile, hefeared such an unknown people less than he did the too well knownIroquois.
Going noiselessly, with every sense alert, the boy caught sight ofsomething moving among the trees ahead. Instantly he dropped to theground and slipped like a snake among trees and bushes and throughundergrowth to the left of the trail. Behind a
dense clump of balsamsthat had sprung up about a parent tree, he lay motionless. When hethought he had waited long enough, he crept cautiously back towards thetrail. Moving bushes a little distance away in the direction from whichhe had come, a glimpse of a black head told the boy he had just missed anencounter.
A short distance farther on, the trail turned to the right and plungeddown an abrupt descent. Then the way wound up and down over low ridges,the outer slopes of which were steep to abruptness, and through boggyravines with thick growth and treacherous moss and mud. Following ageneral downward trend, the trail led at last to almost level ground. NowBlaise went forward with the utmost caution, for he felt that the endmust be near at hand. On this lower ground, near the water, the villageor camp must be situated. Presently the lad stopped, stood still andsniffed the air. He smelled smoke.