“They seem to be getting a raft ready to send out now,” Scott said. “Do you know when they will start with it?”
“Usually start about the time the tide turns out. That will mean about five o’clock this afternoon.”
“Have you any grub?” Scott asked.
“No, but I can get some pretty quick. Ought to go to the cabin before I go off anywhere anyway.”
“All right. I’ll go up with you. Then we’ll make the rounds of the river bank and wait down there to see that raft go by.”
They landed well out of sight of the logging camp and struck off through the woods for Murphy’s ranger cabin.
CHAPTER VII
Murphy had a very attractive little cabin back there in the woods and a little wife who looked perfectly capable of running things while he was away, and while he was home, too, if necessary. She did not seem in the least alarmed at the prospect of being alone for possibly two or three days. Murphy tossed the necessary supplies into his pack sack and they were soon on their way back to the bateau. They loaded all the duffle into Scott’s boat and Murphy took the bow paddle.
It seemed that the log pond was a natural, bottle-shaped arm of the big swamp. From the mouth of it to the river a quarter of a mile away a channel had been cleared of all brush and cypress knees which might interfere with the passage of the log rafts, but there were no booms or anything else to separate it from the rest of the swamp.
“They pole the rafts out that channel to the river,” Murphy explained, “and let them drift with the tide and the current the rest of the way.”