Without stopping to cut up the animal, they skinned one haunch and cut off slices, which they set to broil over the coals. A delicious odor rose; the boys did not even wait until the meat had cooked thoroughly. They had no salt, but the venison, unseasoned as it was, seemed delicious.
The food gave them all more cheerfulness and energy. The prospect of a hard ten days' journey did not look so bad now. At any rate, they would not starve.
"I wonder if the foxes would eat it. They ought to have something," said Fred, and he dropped some scraps of the raw venison into the cage.
As he stooped to peer more closely at the animals, he made a startling discovery. During their absence on the hunt, the mother fox had been gnawing vigorously at the willow cage, particularly at the rawhide lashings that bound the framework together. She had loosened one corner, and if she had been left alone for another hour, she might have escaped with her cubs. It gave the boys a bad fright. Mac refastened the lashings with strips of deer-hide, and strengthened the cage with more willow withes. But the boys realized that in the future one of them would have to stand guard over the cage at night.
The foxes refused to touch the raw meat.
"I didn't expect them to eat for the first day or two," said Horace. "Don't worry. They'll eat in time, when they get really hungry."
"Let's get this buck cut up," said Mac. "It'll soon be moonrise, and we must be moving."
In order to get more light for their work, they piled pitch pine on the fire; then they hung the deer on a tree, and began the disagreeable task of skinning and dressing the animal. When they had finished, they had a good deerskin and nearly two hundred pounds of fresh meat.
They would gladly have slept now, but the sky was brightening in the east with the rising moon, and there was no time for rest. No doubt the trappers were on their trail, somewhere behind them. Hastily the boys loaded the foxes and the venison into the canoe, and as soon as the moon showed above the trees paddled down the lake. They soon found that the moonlight was not bright enough to enable them to run rapids safely, and they consequently had to make frequent carries. Between the rapids they shot swiftly down the current, but the river was so broken that they made no great progress that night.
Northern summer nights are short, and soon after two o'clock the sky began to lighten. By three o'clock the boys could see well, and they went on faster, shooting all except the worst stretches of rough water. Shortly after six o'clock they came out from the Smoke River into the Missanabie.