"None! but we have brought the canoe."
"I see; but have you made no discoveries?"
"None whatever."
"No caps, packs, or bunches of furs washed up anywhere?"
"No, nothing. We examined thoroughly both shores of the rapids, and found nothing, and no mark or sign of any thing about which any conclusion could be formed respecting the manner the canoe got there."
"But the oars?"
"We found them in the same flood-wood with the boat, and they appeared as if they were thrown out of the canoe when it struck."
The canoe, which was the object of scrutiny, and which had been injured much less than had been supposed, a break in the upper part of the bow being the only ruptured part, was now drawn up on the shore; when Phillips, Codman, and Tomah took upon themselves to go into a minute and careful inspection of every part of its outer and inner surface, together with every appearance from which any inference having the least bearing on the question at issue could be drawn by these experienced and observing canoe-men.
"Men no leave oars in canoe, when go over falls," at length observed the Indian, standing back with the air of one who has satisfied himself with an examination,—"no leave oars that way; have them out to use; and then, when upset, drop 'em in the river; where get scattered, go down, wash up different places, mile apart, may be,—not together, right close side of canoe, likely. Don't believe so much story, like that come to."
"Spoke like a man who knows something," said the trapper, the next to offer comments. "And here is a loosened slip-knot in the end of this bark boat-rope, which I have been looking at. See! it has been drawn into a fixed knot, that hasn't been altered since it has had considerable use and steady pulling through it, as I see by the chafed bark inside the small hole within the knot. The hole is too small to have been brought into this shape by hitching it to a stake or projecting limb of a tree on shore. It looks exactly as if a tie attached to some other canoe had been passed through it, to draw this canoe along by; and here is a slight mark of a knife, where that tie has been cut out, owing to the difficulty of untying. This canoe must have been hitched behind some other canoe, and towed down to the head of the rapids, and there sent adrift."