Blaise straightened up, hooked his fingers over the edge of a narrow, rock shelf, swung himself up, and ascended the rest of the way as nimbly as a squirrel. In a few minutes he came scrambling down again, holding in one hand a roughly made torch, resinous twigs bound together with a bit of bearberry vine. With sparks from his flint and steel, he lighted the balsam torch. It did not give a very bright light, but it enabled the boys to examine the old bateau closely. The only mark they could find that might have been intended as a guide was a groove across the fore thwart. At one end of the groove short lines had been cut diagonally to form an arrow point.
“The cache, if it is on the island, must be sought that way,” said Blaise.
“The arrow surely points up the crack. We’ll follow it.”
The smashed bow of the boat was firmly lodged among the fragments of rock upon which it had been driven. Over those fragments, up a steep slope, the boys picked their way for a few yards, until the walls drew together, the fissure narrowing to a mere slit. By throwing the light of the torch into the slit and reaching in arm’s length, Hugh satisfied himself that there were no furs there. Nevertheless the arrow pointed in that direction. He looked about him. The left hand wall was almost perpendicular, solid rock apparently, with only an occasional vertical crack or shallow niche where some hardy bit of greenery clung. But from the right wall several blocks had fallen out. On one of those blocks Hugh was standing. He held the torch up at arm’s length.
“There’s a hole up there. Such a place would make a good cache.”
“Let me up on your shoulders,” Blaise proposed, “and I will look in.”
Sitting on Hugh’s shoulders, Blaise threw the light of the torch into the hole. Then he reached in his arm. “There are no furs here,” he said.
Hugh had been almost certain he had found the cache. He was keenly disappointed. “Are you sure?” he cried.
“Yes. It is a small place, just a hole in the rock. Let me down.”
“There are no furs there,” Blaise repeated, when he had jumped down from Hugh’s shoulders. “But something I found.” He held out a short piece of rawhide cord.