"Steady a minute. Stop!"
It was Steve's voice which broke the silence, and as they craned their necks to look back at him, they saw the long figure of the young trapper stretched in the small canoe, his musket still across his thighs and one hand upon it. The other shaded his eyes, as if the mist worried him.
"Stop!" he called again in the lowest tone. "Wait while I come up with you."
There was a paddle beside him, placed there to enable him to steer if occasion should make that necessary, and while his friends backed water, he drove his paddle into the river and swung his canoe round till it lay alongside the other. To have endeavoured to bring it up directly would have been useless, for a short tow rope connected the two.
"You said that they would have canoes somewhere within reach," he said. "I overheard it, and I believe I have seen the very spot. The wind blew the mist aside suddenly, and I saw a tiny inlet. It is blocked with weeds and osiers, and they too were disturbed by the wind. I am sure that I got a glimpse of the bow of a canoe."
"Jupiter! That's a find," burst out Jim, while Tom and Mac nodded approvingly. "Reckon we'll git across to them boats and break 'em up. Boys, that air our ticket."
He plunged his paddle into the water, followed by the others, and would have swung the canoe round had not Steve still clung to the side.
"One moment, Jim," he said easily and quietly, for he had inherited his father's quiet and judicial manner. "Supposing you smash their canoes. What then?"
Jim gasped. "What then! Why, they're fixed, young 'un. Thought you was 'cute. They ain't got no way left of followin', unless they runs like dogs along the bank, and for that we don't care nothin'."
"That is, supposing they have no other canoes," answered Steve quickly. "But is that likely. They know that if their boats are discovered they are helpless. It seems to me that they may very well have divided them. That's what we should do. In that case they would still have a chance of reaching us."