But Ontonagon was two hundred miles away, and Bruce Mines only ten. It occurred to the chemist to run down there and see if the rock was still yielding either 27, 28, 29, or 52.
In half an hour he emerged from the north channel into Lake Huron, and cruised along the eastern shore of Bay-quah-de-nah-shing. It was all very beautiful, and he made up his mind to return that way by moonlight. He would run southward the eastern length of the island, pick his way westward among the smaller islands, and come back to his tent with the procession of upbound steamers.
Then he turned his prow northward and made for certain smoking chimneys on the Canadian mainland. Bruce Mines received him kindly and gave him some dinner, but was sorry to report that the copper vein had given out, and that the smoking chimneys merely meant trap-rock being quarried.
The steps produced by lava-flows easily held his attention all the afternoon. It was between them that copper had been deposited, apparently by rains.
Yet here and there on the trap were masses of limestone. Once seaweed had floated here, rich in iodine, that precious non-metal which is twice as heavy as copper and a thousand times more valuable, because it will keep a man alive when any of a dozen diseases attacks his cells.
After supper he once more embarked on Lake Huron. It seemed as wide as the ocean, but failed to smell like the ocean. He reflected that the ocean contains some sixty billion tons of the salts of iodine, and that even the odor of kelp brings food into the human body. The Bright River’s thyroids were starving for a smell of oceanic violets.
The sunset was still glowing when he reached Ojeeg’s landing, but it set up no such glow in his heart as did the unexpected voice that greeted him.
“Good evening, Mr. Mahan. I’m rather disappointed to see you, but I ran up to tell the Little Pine that I dote on canned milk.”
Marvin landed.
“Darling Miss Rich, why should your taste amuse a Little Pine?”