Blaise had been even more amazed than Hugh at the deceptive appearance of the sailboat. When they landed later to inspect a stream mouth, the half-breed said seriously that some spirit of the lake must have been playing tricks with them. He wondered if one of the men aboard that bateau was using magic.
“I doubt that,” Hugh answered promptly. “I think the queer light, the sunrise through the mist, deceived our eyes and made the boat look taller. Once on the way from Michilimackinac to the Sault, we saw something like that. A small, bare rock ahead of us stretched up like a high island. The Captain said he had seen the same thing before in that very same spot. He called it ‘looming,’ but he did not think there was anything magical about it.”
Blaise made no reply, but Hugh doubted if the lad had been convinced.
Several times during the rest of the trip down shore, the boys met canoes loaded with trappers and traders or with families of Indians journeying to the Grand Portage or to the New Fort. The two avoided conversation with the strangers, as they did not care to answer questions about themselves or their destination.
The journey was becoming wearisome indeed. The minuteness of the search and the delays from bad weather prolonged the time. Moreover the store of food was scant. The lads fished and hunted whenever possible without too greatly delaying progress, but their luck was poor. Seldom were they able to satisfy their hearty appetites. They lay down hungry under the stars and took up their paddles at chilly dawn with no breakfast but a bit of maple sugar. Hugh grew lean and brown and hard muscled. Except for the redder hue of his tan, the light color of his hair and his gray eyes, he might almost have been whole brother to Blaise. The older boy had become expert with the paddle and could hold his own for any length of time and at any pace the half-breed set. As a camper he was nearly the Indian lad’s equal and he prided himself on being a better cook. It would take several years of experience and wilderness living, however, before he could hope to compete with his younger brother in woodcraft, weather wisdom or the handling of a canoe in rough water.
As mile after mile of carefully searched shore line passed, without sign of the wrecked bateau or trace of Jean Beaupré’s having come that way, the boys grew more and more puzzled and anxious. Nevertheless they persisted in their quest until they came at last to the Fond du Lac.
Fond du Lac means literally the “bottom of the lake,” but the name was used by the early French explorers to designate the end or head of Lake Superior, where the River St. Louis discharges and where the city of Duluth now stands. To-day the name is no longer applied to the head of the lake itself, but is restricted to the railway junction and town of Fond du Lac several miles up the river. There was no town of Fond du Lac or of Duluth in the days of this story. Wild, untamed, uninhabited, rose the steep rock hills and terraces where part of the city now stands.
As they skirted the shore, the boys could see ahead of them a narrow line stretching across the water to the southeast. That line was the long, low point now known as Minnesota Point, a sand-bar that almost closes the river mouth and served then, as it does now, to form a sheltered harbor. Drawing nearer, they discovered that the long, sand point was by no means bare, much of it being covered more or less thickly with bushes, evergreens, aspens and willows. The two lads were weary, discouraged and very hungry. Since their scanty breakfast of wild rice boiled with a little fat, they had eaten nothing but a lump of sugar each, the last remnant of their provisions. Nevertheless they paddled patiently along the bar to the place where the river cut diagonally through it to reach the lake. Entering the narrow channel, they passed through to absolutely still water.
The sun was setting. Unless they went several miles farther to a trading post or caught some fish, they must go to sleep hungry. They decided to try the fishing. Luck with the lines had been poor throughout most of the trip, but that night fortune favored the lads a little. In the shallower water within the bar, they caught, in less than half an hour, two small, pink-fleshed lake trout, which Hugh estimated at somewhat less than three pounds each.
On the inner side of the point, the brothers ran their canoe upon the sand beach. Then they kindled a fire and cooked their long delayed supper. When the meal was over, nothing remained of the fish but heads, fins, skin and bones.