“Did he have a gun?” Ganawa repeated somewhat eagerly.
“Yes, he had a gun,” Bruce asserted. “It was leaning in the bow of the boat, but he jumped for the rock without it, and the gun went over the falls with the canoe.”
“We must follow him,” repeated Ganawa. “If he had been a friend, he would not have run away. He was a man who had some evil in his heart. You must take Ohnemoosh, but you must tie a rope to him so he cannot run away from us and make a big noise with barking and tell the man that we are coming.”
On the way down the steep trail to the Big Pool, Ganawa pointed to some tracks and whispered, “Wet moccasins,” and when Tawny smelled at the tracks his hair bristled and he tried hard to break away from Ray.
If the lads had expected to find the Indian at the Big Pool, they were disappointed. Several pieces of the canoe were travelling round and round in the pool, and Ray caught a cedar-wood paddle, but of the [[135]]gun they found no trace. They followed the trail past the two miles of the rapids below the pool with the dog eagerly leading and straining at the rope, but a few rods below the rapids where the water flows along placidly, carrying patches of foam on its surface, the dog lost the trail.
Ray led him back several times and then released him so he could range as he pleased, but it was all in vain; the trail either ended suddenly or, for some reason, the dog could not follow it any farther.
The three sat down to think it over. The dog also sat down and with a puzzled whine looked at his human friends as if to say: “I don’t know what this means. Can’t you tell me?”
And then Ganawa arose and said: “My sons, I can tell you why the dog cannot follow the trail beyond this point. The man stopped here, jumped into the river and swam across. It is good that he lost his gun, for we know now that he cannot come back and harm us during the night. We [[136]]should not follow him across the stream. It may be that he will never come back, for he knows that his gun is lost and that his canoe was broken where the river leaps over the big steps of the rocks to the whirling pool. And now we must return to our camp, for we have not tasted food since this morning, and we are all very hungry.” [[137]]