Blaise listened in silence, only his eyes betraying his interest. “Truly we know not where to search,” he said when Hugh had finished. “The bateau drifted far. How can we find where it went upon the rocks?”
“I don’t believe it drifted far. If it was so badly damaged father had to abandon it, could it have floated far? Surely it would have gone to the bottom. When that boat was carried across to Isle Royale, I believe father and Black Thunder were still in it with all their furs. The storm drove them out into the lake, they lost their bearings, just as we in the Otter did. They were borne away and dashed by the waves into that crack in the rocks. Near there somewhere we shall find the cache, if we find it at all.”
Hugh spoke confidently, very sure of his own reasoning, but the younger lad was not so easily convinced.
“How,” Blaise questioned, “did he come away from that island Minong if he was wrecked there? He could not come by land and the bateau is still there.”
“He made himself a dugout or birch canoe to cross in when the weather cleared.”
“But then why came he not to Wauswaugoning by canoe?”
“Because,” persisted Hugh, “when he reached the mainland he fell in with some enemy here at the Devil Track River. We know his wound was not received in the wreck. You yourself say it was a knife wound. Black Thunder wasn’t killed in the wreck either. They escaped unharmed but the bateau was beyond repair. So they built a canoe and crossed to this shore. Here they were set upon and Black Thunder was killed and father sorely wounded.”
Again the sceptical Blaise shook his head. “Why were they away down here so far below the Grand Portage? And why, if they had a canoe, brought they not the furs and the packet with them?”
Hugh was aware of the weak links in his theory, yet he clung to it. “Maybe they did bring them,” he said, “but couldn’t carry them overland, so they hid them.”
“No, no. Our father told me that the furs were not far from the wreck. He said that three or four times. I cannot be mistaken.”