They were certainly being well punished. As they paddled on through the fog, without a sound or glimpse of anything that suggested land, both boys grew very uneasy. After all, perhaps Nangotook had been right, perhaps the sleeping Nanabozho had actually shown himself to them as a warning to their rashness, or perhaps Ronald’s bold speech had really offended some manito. Neither boy would have admitted to the other that he had such thoughts, but they lived in a superstitious age, and there were many strange tales current among the voyageurs of the powers of the Indian spirits and of their priests or shamans.

The brightening of the fog showed the advance of day. Yet the adventurers went on and on and on. The thought occurred to both lads that the land they had seen might not be real at all, but only a mirage or a false appearance sent by the evil spirits to lure them to their deaths. There in that dense, chilling mist, cut off as it seemed from the world of men, and going perhaps into the very middle of the great lake, whose mysteries neither Indian nor white man had ever fully penetrated, such thoughts were far from pleasant.

Even fear could not still the pangs of hunger in healthy boys, however, or make them quite forget that they had had no breakfast. The birch basket still held the remains of the hare stew from their evening meal, so Ronald helped himself to a share of it, and then took the stern paddle while Jean breakfasted. Nangotook, however, refused to give up his paddle or to eat.

The day wore away, and still the blades dipped with regular rhythm. The stroke was slower and easier now, for there was no reason, lost as they were for haste or speed. They paddled merely to keep headway on the canoe and to strike the waves at the right angle. And still, hour after hour, they went on and on, Jean and Ronald taking turns at the stern paddle, the Indian never yielding up his place in the bow.

Ronald was plying his paddle mechanically, a dull apathy having settled down on his spirit, as the hour of silence and white mist passed, and Jean, stretched out on the bottom of the canoe, had fallen asleep when Nangotook, who had been sullenly silent all day, spoke suddenly. “Land,” he said and jerked his head towards the left.

Ronald woke from his stupor at once. The first thing he noticed was that the mist was a little less thick, for he could see Nangotook more distinctly, the next thing he observed was that the water was perfectly smooth, without even a ripple, and the third and most important was a dim, scarcely discernible something, a shadow of a shape, on the left hand. He called to Jean and the latter sat up and stared at the shadow.

At the Indian’s order Ronald swerved the canoe in that direction. There was no sound of surf, yet the approach must be made cautiously, for rock shores are far more common on Lake Superior than sand beaches. A careful stroke and paddles lifted, another stroke and paddles lifted again, and then the bow grated gently. Without hesitation Nangotook stepped over the side, while Ronald held the canoe stationary with his paddle.

[XV]
STRANDED

It was not a sand beach the canoe had grated upon, but solid rock. The three adventurers stepped over the side, and, carrying the canoe, waded up a slope of rock until they were well above the water line. The fog was so thick they could see almost nothing of their surroundings. Scrambling over unfamiliar rocks slippery with moisture, when they could not see where they were going, was too perilous an undertaking to be worth attempting. There was nothing to do but wait until the fog cleared. So they unloaded the canoe, turned it over, propped it up, and settled themselves on their blankets in its shelter. Waiting was chilly, dreary work, but they were cheered by the knowledge that the mist was thinning. They did not have to wait long. Before the veiled sun sank to its setting, the fog, though it did not disappear, became so thin that climbing about was no longer dangerous.