In the meantime another canoe was ascending this winding stream, and long before nightfall, Pete Bolduc, sure that he was on the trail of McGuire, entered the ledge-bordered lake.
CHAPTER XIX
“If most on us cud see ourselves as the rest see us, we’d want to be hermits.”–Old Cy Walker.
To trail an enemy who is never without a rifle and the will to use it, requires courage and Indian cunning as well. Pete Bolduc had both, and after observing the many signs of a trapper’s presence in the swamp, he knew, after he crossed it and reached this lake, that somewhere on its shores, his enemy, McGuire, had his lair.
He paused at the outlet, as did Old Cy, to scan every rod of its rocky shores, not once, but a dozen times.
The sun was now halfway down. A mellow autumn haze softened the encircling mountains and the broad, frowning peak to the right. A gentle breeze rippled the upper end of the lake, and here, in the wild rice growing along its borders, stood a deer, belly-deep in the green growth.
No thought of the blessed harmony of lake, sky, and forest, or the sequestered beauty of this spot, came to the half-breed. Revenge and murder–twin demons of his nature–were in his heart, and the Indian cunning that made him hide while he watched for signs of his enemy. The bare peak overlooking the lake soon impressed him as a vantage point, and after a half-hour of watchful listening he laid his rifle across the thwart, handy to grasp on the instant, and, seizing his paddle once more, crossed the lake to the foot of the peak.
To hide his canoe here, ascend this with pack and rifle, was the next move of this human panther, and here in a sheltering crevasse he lay and watched for his enemy.
Two hours later, and just at sunset, McGuire returned to the lake.