They landed at once and climbed the hill. They found the signal. It was a piece of a butternut-dyed shirt. To the pole was also tied a piece of birch-bark with a message:
“Am stranded here. My partner is gone. I have no ax. Camp on east shore, near south point. J. D. April 26.” [[257]]
The lads cheered and danced around the pole and then all of them started for Jack Dutton’s camp. For the moment all their hardships and dangers were forgotten.
They found his camp-site, but the camp had been moved, and they found no message. What did it mean? Had he been taken off by somebody? A man without an ax cannot build a raft or boat. If he is still on the island they ought to be able to find his camp-fire. Ganawa knew that there were several small shallow lakes in the interior, but a man who wishes to be taken off an island would not camp in the interior. He would set up his tent or tepee near shore and he would keep a fire going. So the three men paddled around the whole island and looked sharp for signs of a camp or a human being. From time to time they sang out Jack Dutton’s name, but no sign or sound greeted them in reply to their calls except the echo of their own voices. The mystery, which for a brief hour they had thought solved, had grown only deeper and darker. Jack Dutton [[258]]must either have been taken off the island by some chance trader, or he was lying dead somewhere in a thicket or swamp of the island. It seemed not probable that he had been taken off, for so rarely was the solitary island visited by either Indians or white men that neither traders nor Indians knew that the island was stocked with caribou. Although the existence of the island was known to the Indians with whom Alexander Henry traded, their information was vague and none of them had ever been to the island.
That evening Ganawa and his sons were more downcast than they had ever been on their whole long journey. Even the rare treat of sweet tea with their supper of broiled lake trout failed to revive their spirits. Each drank his share of the tea, but most of the fine broiled fish was left on the birch-bark platter. And after the meal was over, hardly a word was spoken, as each man sat and stared blankly into the fire. And this time, the spirit of the white lads [[259]]had even drooped deeper than that of the old Indian hunter.
“My sons,” he said when he poured water on the camp-fire, “to-morrow we shall hunt again for Jack Dutton. If he is alive we must find him, and if he is dead we must find him. If he is alive, maybe Ohnemoosh can find him, if we cross his tracks.” [[260]]
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE LAST SEARCH
In the morning the three friends started on foot to search the island. They made Dutton’s old camp their starting-point and from there went north on the east side of the island. There was no doubt about the place having been the lost man’s camp-site, but all the signs about the camp were old. The dog sniffed at some caribou bones, but showed no indications of scenting recent footprints. They had gone about a mile north, following a plain caribou trail, when Bruce raised his hand and stopped short. “I smell fire,” he announced, turning back to his companions. “Do you smell it, too, or is my imagination deceiving me?”