They now kept Alex in sight, and in the course of about fifteen or twenty minutes came up with Moise, who was sitting down, resting his back against the root of a tree.
“I suppose you’ll know where we are now?” he asked of Rob.
Rob shook his head. “No, I don’t recognize the place.”
Moise pointed with a thumb to a point just back of the tree. Rob stepped over, and gazing down, saw a deep hole in the ground.
“Why, I know!” said he. “This is one of the holes the bear dug—one of the first ones, I should think.”
“Oh, I see, you cut across-lots and didn’t follow the back trail.” John was as much surprised as Rob.
“No,” said Alex, “we saved perhaps half a mile by coming straight across, for, you see, the bear was wandering all around on the hillside as he was trying to get away. You’ll find the boats are directly below us here, and not very far away.”
“This,” said Rob, “seems to me pretty wonderful! You men certainly do know how to get along in this country. I’d never have thought this was the direct course, and if I had been in there alone I certainly would have followed the bear’s trail back—if I could have found it.”
Yet it all came out quite as Alex and Moise had planned, for in less than ten minutes more they scrambled down the steep bank to the rocky beach where the two boats lay. The men distributed the hide and meat between the two, covering up both with green willow boughs.