“And now, my sons, it is time to roll up in our blankets. To-morrow I shall tell you more news; and, maybe, we shall paddle up the Michipicoten, which is a good river, with clear cold water in which live many good fish of the color of the rainbow.” [[89]]
CHAPTER XI
MYSTERY AND DANGER
In the morning Ganawa told the lads some news which he had kept to himself the evening before.
“There was a visitor at this camp only a few sleeps ago,” he said. “It was Hamogeesik. He is no good Indian, he is no good white man. He is a bad Indian and a bad white man in one. He asked my Chippewa friends if they had seen two white boys and he tried to find out from the Ininiwac people where two white men had made a cache of fur, and if the white men had been looking for any gold rock. Most white men, he said, were looking for gold rock all the time. The Ininiwac people told him they did not know where the two white men had cached their fur more than twelve moons ago; and none of the Indians here know [[90]]whether the two white men are still back in the hills or whether they have left and taken their furs away.
“But I know what is in the black heart of Hamogeesik. I think he is trying to follow us, for he has learned that we are trying to find the two men who made a cache of fur and looked for gold rock in the hills from which the waters run to the Michipicoten.”
The three travellers remained several days at the camp with the Ininiwacs and the Chippewas, because Ganawa thought he might discover more definite information about the place where the two white men had made their cache, whether they had found or had been looking for any gold rock, and whether they were still in the country.
On the fourth morning he said: “My sons, we must leave this camp. I have learned very little from the people here, and I know now that I shall learn nothing more; so we must travel among the hills up the river and look for signs of our friends. But [[91]]I fear we shall find nothing, unless the Great Spirit sends me more light. The country is very big, and there are as many hills and streams and lakes as there are leaves on a tree. There are many big lakes and many more small lakes. No Indian has ever found all the small lakes and small streams, only the beaver people have found them and the fish that shine like a rainbow. But we must now paddle up-stream among the high hills and trust in the Great Spirit that he may let us find some sign that may tell us where to look for your friends.”
Had the three travellers been on a pleasure or camping trip, they could hardly have chosen a finer and more beautiful river. For a mile or two they passed through a level sandy country into which the river has cut its channel, making on the north side a steep bank more than fifty feet high. This level country was covered with a growth of jack-pine, spruces and balsam firs; and to this day a most beautiful, natural jack-pine park extends some miles up-stream toward [[92]]the big falls of the Michipicoten, of which we shall soon hear more.