“That feller’s in a cave,” he whispered to Ray, “an’ the smoke’s comin’ out o’ a crack, sure’s a gun!”
It seemed so, and for a half-hour the two watched it in silent amazement.
Then came another surprise, for suddenly Old Cy caught sight of a man just emerging from behind a rock fully ten rods from the rising smoke; he stooped, lifted a canoe into view, advanced to the shore, slid it halfway into the water, returned to the rock, picked up a rifle, then pushed the canoe off, and, crossing the lake, vanished into the outlet.
The two watchers on the ridge exchanged glances.
“He’s goin’ to tend his traps, an’ mebbe ourn,” Old Cy said at last, and then led the way back to their bark shack. Here he halted, and placing one hand scoop-fashion over his ear, listened intently until he caught the faint sound of a paddle touching a canoe gunwale. First slightly, then a more distinctive thud, and then less and less until the sound ceased.
“The coast’s clear,” he added, now in an exultant whisper, “an’ while the old cat’s away we’ll take a peek at his den.”
A hurried gathering of their few belongings was made, the canoe was shoved into the lagoon, and no time was lost until the lake was crossed and they drew alongside of where the smoke was still rising in a thin film. No landing was possible here, for the shore was a sheer face of upright slate, and only where this lone trapper had launched his canoe could they make one.
From here a series of outcropping slate ledges rose one above another, and between them and parallel to the shore, narrow, irregular passages partially closed by broken rock. It was all of slaty formation, jagged, serrated, and gray with moss.
Following one of these passages, Old Cy and Ray came to the ledge out of which the smoke was rising from a crevasse. It was a little lower than one in front, perhaps forty feet in breadth, double that in length, and of a more even surface. At each end was a short transverse passage hardly wide enough to walk in, and a few feet deep.
And now, after a more careful examination of the crevasse out of which the thin film of smoke rose, Old Cy began a search. Up and down each narrow passway he peeped and peered, but nowhere was a crack or cranny to be found in their walls. In places they were as high as his head, sheer faces of slate, then broken, serrated, moss-coated, or of yellow, rusty color. Here and there a stunted spruce had taken root in some crack, and over, back from the topmost ledge, this green enclosure began and continued up the low mountain. Here, also, in a sunny nook below this belting tangle of scrub spruce, were ample signs of a trapper’s occupation in the way of pelts stretched upon forked sticks and hanging from a cord crossing this niche. They were of the usual species found in this wilderness,–a dozen muskrat, with a few mink and otter skins and one lynx.