It was the middle of July when they reached Lake Manitowik. From this lake they portaged to Dog Lake, and from Dog Lake they crossed a mile overland to Lake Wabatongushi.
Whitefish Lake and Manitowik Lake are narrow lakes with simple shore-lines which run from southwest to northeast; but on the other two lakes the lads felt completely lost. They passed an endless number of bays and not a few islands, and several nights they camped on an island where they were entirely free from mosquitoes.
“Bruce, I think we are pretty close to Hudson Bay,” remarked Ray when they had been several days travelling along the west shore of Wabatongushi. “It is right that this lake should have a long name, because it is so long that I think we shall never reach the end of it. [[153]]
“We shall never find Jack Dutton, Bruce. This country is so big that you might as well tell me to find a carpet-tack you lost in Vermont as to expect to find Jack Dutton. I wonder if Ganawa knows where we are. Pretty soon it will be winter and then we shall freeze to death in our tepee.”
As they travelled along under the lee of the west shore where the water was quiet, they saw the whitecaps breaking on the east shore, although the lake is in most places less than a mile wide, but it is about twenty miles long and runs straight north and south.
While they were travelling northward, they were constantly looking for a camp or signs of a camp, but the whole country seemed an endless wilderness, uninhabited by either Indians or white men. They discovered several old camp-sites of Indians, but only one where white men had camped on the northwest bay of the lake.
“Look, my sons,” said Ganawa. “It [[154]]was a white men’s camp. They built a big fire and let it run up the hills and it killed all the pines and other trees, but we shall go up there and look for gold rock.”
If the lads had thought that looking for gold rock, which is now called prospecting, was easy, they learned something new. Ganawa led them up a steep rocky hill where hundreds of dead trees lay in all directions, and where birches and pin-cherry bushes had begun to cover the destruction wrought by the fire. At last Ganawa stopped on the top of a ridge over a vein of white quartz about a foot wide. “This should be the gold rock,” he said. “It looks as my father and a white man described it to me; but I cannot see the gold.”
They followed the vein over the hill until it was lost in some green timber in the valley beyond, then they returned to the bay and made camp for the night.
Next morning Ganawa sat a long time thinking, then he rose up and pointed to the northwest. “My sons,” he said, “there is [[155]]another large lake, Oba Lake, in the direction of the setting sun, and if you are not tired of travelling with me, we shall go there, but there is no portage trail to it and it is more than a league away. There are many beavers on the streams that run into that lake and your friend may be on that lake, but I do not know if we shall find any gold rock near its shore.”