The Island of Yellow Sands: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys

by Ethel C. Brill

“Two men,” corrected Nangotook.

“What are they? Did you follow them?” cried Ronald. “How did you come upon their trail?”

In the brief, abrupt manner in which he usually gave information when action impended, Nangotook explained that he had waked in the night with the feeling that some strange thing or person was near by. He had lain quiet, listening. From a big cedar that overhung the lodge, he had heard the faint rustle of foliage, the creaking of a limb. There was little wind, and that sixth sense, by which an Indian distinguishes sounds, told the Ojibwa that the noises were made by animal or man. Something warned him of danger. As he lay listening, his suspicions were confirmed. He heard a scraping as if some hard substance rubbed the bark of the tree. Then the branches creaked more loudly, and there came a thud as of something heavy striking the ground. But that was not all. Just as the heavy thing struck the earth, the Indian’s keen ears detected a whispered exclamation, an oath in French. That sound must have dispelled from his mind the fear, if he had felt it, that the thing in the tree might be some supernatural being. Indian manitos, spirits or fiends would not be apt to swear in French.

The full, slow breathing of the two boys indicated that they had not been disturbed. Lying perfectly still, Nangotook also breathed deeply and regularly, so that any one listening might think that all three slept soundly. He did not want the spy, whoever he was, to suspect that any one was awake and listening. The Indian heard no more rustlings or scrapings, however. There was nothing to suggest that the man approached nearer.

For a long time Nangotook lay perfectly still. Then, feeling sure that the spy had taken himself off, he rose noiselessly, cast away his blanket, and, knife in hand, stepped over Ronald and out of the lodge. It was useless to try to track the uninvited visitor in the darkness. It was the canoe the Ojibwa was anxious about. Making his way to the place where it was hidden, he found it safe and undisturbed.

On the bay, and along the edge of the woods that grew down to it, there was more light, for day was dawning. As Nangotook started to turn back towards camp, he caught sight of something floating on the water near by. He crawled out on the leaning tree trunk where he and his companions had landed two days before, reached for the thing and secured it. It was a small piece of deerskin, such as travelers usually carried for moccasin patches. It did not belong to him or to either of the boys, and it had not been in the water long, for it was scarcely wet. To the Indian it was sure proof that the night visitor had come by water. He looked for the place where the man’s canoe had come in, and soon found the spot, under a thick, overhanging tangle of trees and bushes, where he would not have noticed signs of landing had he not been searching for them.

Returning to his own hidden canoe, he put it in the water, shoved off, and paddled noiselessly along close to shore. He had not gone far, when he heard, from the direction of the camp, the sharp screech of a lynx, but he paid no heed. It was the cry of a real lynx, not a human imitation, and the thought that the two boys might be in any danger from that fierce, but, as far as man is concerned, cowardly animal, never occurred to him. He was seeking to discover whether the stranger’s canoe had come from somewhere on the bay or through the channel. The depth of the water enabled him to keep close in to the shore, which he eyed keenly in the half light of the gray, gloomy dawn. He skirted the higher land, then the low ground opposite the entrance, finding nothing to indicate that a boat had ever run in anywhere.

It was not until he had gone more than half-way around and had come to rising ground again, that he observed a suspicious looking spot. He paused to examine it, and found a landing place, with a distinct trail leading away from it. The tracks showed that two men had come and gone that way. Probably they had carried their canoe with them, for he did not find it hidden anywhere, though he sought for it. The tracks had been made since the rain, and there had been no attempt to obliterate them. Nangotook followed them across to the north shore of the island, where he had not been before.

There, among the rocks, the trail ended abruptly. He searched, but could find no more tracks. Finally he became convinced that the men must have lowered the canoe down a cleft in the rock wall to the water.

Where had they gone? He had no way of telling. The outlying rocks were wave washed, and afforded no shelter. There was no other land visible. A short distance out, the morning mists lay thick on the lake. There might be hidden land off there somewhere, or the canoe might have gone along shore, but which way or how far he could not guess. So he turned back the way he had come.