“Monga said he saw the giants, Hugh, he and others of the band.”
“We spent nearly a day on that point and we saw no giants. If Monga saw anything there it must have been you and me. I don’t understand how those fellows in that canoe could have missed seeing us. Blaise,”—a sudden light of understanding dawned in Hugh’s face,—“Blaise, do you remember how hot and still it was, and how the haze shimmered on the water? And do you recall the day we crossed to the Isle Royale, the very same sort of day? We saw the mirage, high mountains towering up where later we found there were no real mountains. Do you remember too when we left the Bay of the Beaver, how we saw coming towards us through the morning mist, what we thought was a ship, so tall it looked, but when it drew nearer it shrank to a mere sailboat?”
“I remember those things.” Blaise was staring at Hugh’s excited face.
“Don’t you understand then? Don’t you see how it was that Monga and those others in that canoe saw giants on the end of the point? On that hot, still day, as they came across the water and looked through the shimmer of the heat haze, they saw us there on the open rocks. We ourselves saw that island far out greater than it really was and distorted. Do you remember how it shrank afterwards? To those men in that canoe we too were distorted and loomed up huge and tall like giants. That was what frightened them. That explains their hasty flight. We were the giants on the end of the point!”
Blaise was still staring, but his look of puzzlement had given way to one almost of awe. “It may be as you say,” he replied slowly. “Monga thought it was Kepoochikan and Nanibozho. I cannot understand it at all, that enchantment you call mirage that makes men see mountains that are not there and turns bateaus into ships and men into giants.”
“I don’t understand it either,” Hugh admitted, “and neither did the captain of the Athabasca. He said it was just one of the secrets of nature that we don’t understand yet. Surely the mirage is nothing to fear. It has stood us in good stead by frightening away Ohrante’s men and causing them to stand in terror of this bay. No wonder we scared them away with the echoes. They must have been frightened when they came in here. If only their fear is strong enough to keep them away now, we are safe. But we dare not trust too much to that. We must hide ourselves as well as we can. The entrance to this little lake is narrow and I think I see a way to block it so it will look as if no boat could have gone through. First, though, let us eat something if there is anything left.”
“There is a little corn, if no animal has stolen it,” Blaise replied. “I too am sore hungry, for I have eaten nothing but a few green bearberries since I set out in search of you.”
XXIX
THE CEDAR BARRIER
The corn, in its bark wrapping, was found untouched, hanging from the birch where Blaise had left it. Not daring to kindle a fire for fear the smoke might betray them, Hugh put the dry, hulled kernels in the kettle with cold water to soften them. Then he spoke again of his plan to block the entrance to the pond.
“That cedar that leans far down over the water,” he explained, “looks as if it was almost ready to fall of its own weight. If we could pull or push it down, it would go clear across that narrow channel.”