“Gee!” said Hugh and sat down abruptly on the grass. “Gee, but I’m glad to see this place again!”
It looked indeed, to his weary desperate eyes, like a true bit of Paradise. He thought quickly of the name at which he had laughed a little when he saw it written in Oscar’s hand upon the map. It was, after all, not so much amiss to call the valley “The Promised Land.”
CHAPTER VI
THE PROMISED LAND
There was not a great deal said, that night, about Hugh’s first experiment as a woodsman, for Oscar seemed to be the sort of person who knew when it was kinder not to ask questions. One look at his white, anxious face when he came home long after dark, one glimpse of his smile of delight and relief when he found that Hugh had returned safely after all, these caused the boy enough remorse without the wasting of any words. That he had lost Oscar’s rifle was to Hugh the bitterest and most irretrievable mishap of the whole day. He might tell himself over and over that he would replace it when he went back to Rudolm, but how soon would that be and how desperately might not the weapon be needed before that time?
When they set out again next day, Oscar gave his directions without any added warning that this time Hugh had better not improve upon them with additions of his own. He trusted the boy to carry out his share of the search alone and made no comment when this time they met successfully at the place that he had chosen.
All of that day they searched, and all of the next, but with no results.
“It is a good thing that Jake is really gone,” said Oscar, “for otherwise I would not dare go so far and leave the cottage alone. This way we can cover twice as much ground and so must surely find the boys at last.”
They went further and further afield each day and finally, carrying blankets and provisions, they penetrated far to the northward, slept in the woods two nights and returned in a wide circle that covered the forest for many miles. Footprints of Indians they found, and of moose and deer, but of traces that two white men had passed that way, they saw no single one. They came home worn and dispirited, each one trying to talk cheerfully to raise the hopes of the other.
The next day they were too weary to set forth again. It was Sunday, a week from the day that Hugh had come through the forest from Rudolm. The day came somewhat as a surprise to him, for he had quite forgotten that there were such things as calendars and days of the week. He noticed that Oscar slept later that morning and reduced the household tasks of both of them to as few as possible. He did not however suspect any other reason beyond weariness until, at the end of the afternoon, he came out to go to the spring for water and found his friend seated on the doorstone, reading his Bible in the thorough, painstaking manner with which he did everything.