“A sign from the manito himself,” growled the Indian, and turned his back.
The lads were not unimpressed by Nangotook’s words and manner. The dim figure, like a great man outstretched in sleep, seemed mysterious and uncanny enough to their imaginations. Thunder Cape is the eastern boundary of Thunder Bay on the northwest shore of Superior, and it is only its highest part that is visible far across the lake, the lower land sinking entirely out of view and leaving the Giant lying solitary on the water.
“Etienne says it is a sign,” Jean remarked in a low voice. “Does he think the omen good or bad, I wonder?”
Ronald shook his head. “I doubt if he knows what he thinks, but what is that to us? If we ever find the gold, we will secure it in spite of all the Indian devils in the lake.” He spoke hotly, eager to prove to himself as well as to his companion that he had no faith in or respect for the power of such heathen spirits and demons.
Jean looked a little frightened at his friend’s bold tone. Nangotook turned on him with a stern face. “Speak not so of the manitos of these waters,” he said peremptorily, “lest you rouse their wrath and bring disaster on us all.” And with a glance of scorn at the offending lad, he walked away.
“Nangotook is but a weak kind of Christian,” Ronald remarked sneeringly. “He still puts his faith in these manitos of his and fears them.” The boy was smarting under the Indian’s rebuke.
Jean shook his head doubtfully. “He is a Christian,” he replied, “but, being an Indian, he has seen instances of the power of the spirits of the lake. I, too, am a Christian, as you very well know, and have no veneration for such savage gods and devils, but I have heard strange tales of their doings and of the power of their priests. Father René says the medicine men’s gifts are surely of the devil, but that good Christians who put their faith in a higher power need have no fear of them. Yet I can see no good in offending the spirits needlessly, and bringing their enmity upon us by foolish speeches.”
To this argument, which indicated that Jean upheld the Indian in his rebuke, Ronald found no ready answer. Indeed in his heart he was not so contemptuous of the manito’s powers as he appeared, and was just a bit uneasy over his own defiance. The feeling was not strong enough, however, to shake his determination to find the wonderful island and to carry off a goodly sample of its golden sands.
The wind was still blowing so strongly from the west as to make traveling impossible. Ronald had suffered no ill effects, except a little stiffness of the muscles, from his soaking and chilling of the day before, but the wound on his forehead and a lump on the back of his head pained him considerably, so he did not care to exert himself. He remained in camp, spending his time mending his clothes and making a hare skin cap to replace the toque he had lost when he fell over the cliff. The others fished on the lea side of the island, visited the snares, and searched for some signs of the man or beast that had attacked the boy. With the exception of some footprints at the edge of the cliff, prints made by a larger moccasin than Ronald wore, there was no trace of the mysterious enemy. The tracks were found in one place only, where a little earth had lodged on the rock. On the almost bare rocks round about, no marks were discernible. Jean and Etienne would have been glad to explore the caves under the cliff, but the high wind of that day and the following one made it impossible to use the canoe on that side of the island.
The second evening after Ronald’s fall from the cliff, a wonderful aurora borealis, more brightly colored than any the boys had ever seen, waved its streamers of green, yellow, orange and flame-red over the northern sky. Nangotook regarded it with awe, and muttered something in his own language that the boys could not understand.