CHAPTER XVI
Fred never quite knew how he got back to camp after he had found the river. He found his companions still sound asleep, but it did not take him long to rouse them and to tell them the news.
"I couldn't see any tracks on the shore. I don't think any one has passed," Fred said.
In less than a minute the boys, wild with joy, were hurrying through the woods again. It was almost dark when they reached the river; peering close to the ground they examined the trail carefully, to make sure that the trappers had not already passed.
The heavy rain had washed the shores, and no fresh tracks showed in the mud. The men had not been over the portage that day, and they could hardly have passed the rapids without making a carry. They had evidently camped for the night at some point below, and would not come up the river until morning.
After piling up some hemlock boughs for a bed, the boys lay down, and dropped into a heavy sleep. Now that the strain was over, Fred slept, too. In fact, for the last quarter of an hour he had hardly been able to stay on his feet.
In the gray dawn Horace awakened them. They were stiff from their thirty-mile race of the day before, and their feet were swollen. Hot food—especially hot tea—was what they longed for; but they were afraid to make a fire, and they had to content themselves with a little raw venison for their breakfast.
Horace thought that they could make their ambush where they were as well as anywhere else. The portage was about thirty yards long, and the narrow trail passed over a ridge and ran through dense hemlock thickets. If the trappers came up the trail in single file, carrying heavy loads, they could not use their rifles against a sudden attack.
The boys armed themselves each with a hardwood bludgeon; then they ensconced themselves in the thickets where they could see the reaches of the river below—and waited.