“That squaw whom you whites call Laughing Mary told me to tell you, I do not know why, that the man of Jasper Peak passed through Two Rivers only a few hours before you, and must be camping in these woods. I think that is his fire now.”
Far off through the black tree trunks there could be seen a faint red glare that grew brighter as they went along.
“Do you mean Half-Breed Jake?” inquired Hugh anxiously. “Was he alone?”
“There were two Indians with him,” replied Shokatan. “Yes, that is their camp. It is better that they should not see us go by.”
They came nearer, saw the firelight flickering among the trees, saw two black figures stretched upon the ground rolled in their blankets and sound asleep. One man only was sitting upright, his back against a pine, his face toward the stream, but he, too, seemed wrapped in deepest slumber. The canoe floated so slowly that it seemed scarcely moving, the Indian’s paddle dipped and dipped again without a sound. Foot by foot they worked their way along, skirting the bank where the shadows lay, sliding past like shadows themselves. The fire flared high, one of the burning logs broke and settled with a crash, the man beside it awoke. Both boys held their breath, while the canoe floated with the current; slowly, slowly it crawled into the thick pool of shade cast by a big maple that overhung the bank. The man, it was the Indian Kaniska, listened as though vaguely conscious that something was stirring, stooped to mend the fire, then stopped to listen again and to peer into the dark. Almost imperceptibly the canoe moved on, was swallowed up in denser shadow, slipped past a bend in the stream and left the camp out of sight.
The moment of danger had roused Hugh into full wakefulness now and, although he was unbelievably weary, he bent to his paddling with redoubled energy. The trees seemed to recede on either hand, showing overhead a myriad of stars, the river widened and they came out at last on the vast dark flood of the open lake. The canoe’s bow wavered a little, then turned toward shore where Shokatan, grasping an overhanging branch, pulled it up to the bank and stepped out.
“The rest of the way you go alone,” he said. “Around that point, through the channel, then when you are in the open lake again make for the nearest sandy beach. You will see Oscar Dansk’s house on the hill above.”
Before Hugh could speak, to protest against being left, to thank the Indian for his help, he had pushed out the boat again and had disappeared into the underbrush. Wearily the boy took up his paddle once more and drove the canoe steadily onward parallel to the wooded shore.
He was thinking of what might be before him and of the strange journey that lay behind, but for the most part his tired brain was concentrated on the rise and dip, rise and dip of the paddle. One detail of his night’s adventures alone seemed to stand out in his mind, only because it was the one thing of all others that he could not understand. When, at Two Rivers, Laughing Mary had turned to greet him in the firelight, he had noticed that her baby was wrapped in something brownish yellow, that even in the half darkness he was certain must be the brown bear-cub’s skin. He was too worn out either to reason the matter out or to drop it entirely from his mind.
Above him the stars were paling at last and the sky growing gray. He came to the headland where the lake seemed suddenly to end and where Jasper Peak, which towered directly over him now, sent a long rocky spur down to the water’s edge. Through Harbin’s Channel he crept, out into the second stretch of open water, a wide expanse, beginning to show blue instead of gray as the sky grew brighter. Over at his right he could see a little inlet and a line of sandy beach, above it a steep wooded hill with a cottage at the very summit. The miles of woods beyond, the bays and bold capes that bounded the lake, the undiscovered country claimed by the Pirate of Jasper Peak, for these he had no eyes and no interest as he struggled wearily toward his journey’s end.