“Thank God,” Bruce said in a low voice. “I knew we were close to the island, but it seemed as if we should never reach it. Thank God we found it. It is the best-looking island I ever saw.”
In reality the island looked quite forbidding. Bold, jagged rocks seemed to form the whole shore, and it took some time before Ganawa found a safe pebbly landing-place. Rather small spruces, balsam firs, and birches formed a dense forest and were all dripping wet, and there was not a sign of any human habitation either white or Indian. As far as Bruce and Ray could tell, there had never been a human being on the island.
“We camp here, my sons,” Ganawa informed the white lads, “and we must set up our tepee, because the woods and the ground are too wet and cold without a tepee and a fire. White men call this place Montreal Island, and it measures about a league if you go north and south, and a league if you go east and west.” [[54]]
CHAPTER VI
A SPOOKY CAMP
Ray had a feeling that they had narrowly escaped from the horrible fate of being lost in a fog on Lake Superior. He had seen fogs in his native province of Vermont, but this was his first experience with a fog such as he had just seen. That a fog could come up so suddenly and could almost change day into night was a revelation to the lad. But he understood now why Ganawa had been so anxiously watching the sky for signs of a change in the weather and why he had steered for the island instead of for the mouth of the Agawa, which was about twelve miles farther to the northeast, and where Ganawa would have had to hold a true course over open water about ten miles wide.
“My sons,” remarked Ganawa, “I was afraid we should get lost if we tried to reach [[55]]the mainland even if we had used our little compass. When a fog comes up, every wise man paddles as quickly as possible to the nearest land.”
There was something spooky about the place where they had landed. They had carried their tepee-skin and other things a few rods through the dripping forest over very rough rocky ground and had laid them down in an open grassy spot, where to the surprise of both Ray and Bruce, they found two sets of tepee-poles already set up. But the fog had now become so thick that, if Ray walked over to one side of the clearing, he could not see the tepee-poles at the other side. He walked a few rods along a game trail in search of dry punk wood, but in the dense timber he had a feeling that the sun had set and that at any moment it might grow pitch dark. With a feeling of fear he turned back toward camp. He was puzzled when he came to a fork in the trail, which he had not noticed in coming from the camp. He took the fork [[56]]to his right and followed it for a time, which seemed to him to be twice as long as he had taken going away from the camp. But no open place and no tepee-poles came in sight; on the contrary the timber grew more dense and the trail began to lead up-hill. He stopped and called, “Hoh, Bruce!” He listened for an answer but none came.
The blood rushed hot to his face. “I believe I am lost,” he thought. He listened a moment and heard the sound of some one chopping wood, but the sound came from the wrong direction, and Ray called lustily for Bruce.