Toward evening gathering clouds augured an early renewal of the storm, and Stanton and I had just put up the stove in the tent in anticipation of it when Pete and Easton, the latter thoroughly fagged out, came into camp.
“Well, Pete,” I asked, “what luck?”
“Find trail all right,” he answered. “Can’t follow him easy. Long carry. First lake far, maybe eleven, twelve mile. Little ponds not much good for canoe. Trail old. Not used long time. All time go up hill.”
“Where’s Richards?” I inquired, noticing his absence.
“Left us about four miles back to take a short cut to the river and follow it down to camp,” said Easton. “He thought you might want to know how it looked above, and perhaps keep on that way instead of tackling the portage, for the trail’s going to be mighty hard. It looks as though the river would be better.”
We waited until near dark for Richards, but he did not come. Then we ate our supper without him.
The rain grew into a downpour and darkness came, but no Richards, and at length I became alarmed for his safety. I pushed back the tent flaps and peered out into the pitchy darkness and pouring rain.
“He’ll never get in to-night,” I remarked. “No,” said some one, “and he’ll have a hard time of it out there in the rain.” There was nothing to do but wait. Pete rummaged in his bag and produced a candle (we had a dozen in our outfit), sharpened one end of a stick, split the other end for two or three inches down, forced open the split end and set the candle in it and stuck the sharpened end in the ground, all the while working in the dark. Then he lit the candle.
I do not know how long we had been sitting by the candle light and putting forth all sorts of conjectures about Richards and his uncomfortable position in the bush without cover and the probable reasons for his failure to return, when the tent front opened and in he came, as wet as though he had been in the river.
“Well, Richards,” I asked, when he was comfortably settled at his meal, “what do you think of the river?”