In the excitement over Fred's rescue they had entirely forgotten it. It had drifted downstream. If lost or destroyed they would be left stranded in the wilderness—almost as hopelessly as castaways at sea.
Without another word Mac began to run at full speed down the bank in the deepening twilight. If the canoe had drifted right down the stream, he might never have overtaken it, but luckily he came upon it within a mile, lying stranded and capsized. By the greatest good luck, too, it was not ruined. It had several bruises and a strip of the rail was split off, but it was still water-tight.
The next morning Fred was fairly recovered of his hurts, but felt weak and dizzy, so that not much progress was made. During the whole forenoon they remained in camp. Horace went hunting with the shotgun and got a couple of ducks. None of them felt much inclined for any more fishing in that almost fatal spot.
On the following day, however, Fred was able to take his share of the work again, and the party proceeded. That day and many days after were much alike. They tracked the canoe up long stretches of rough water, where two of them had to wade alongside in order to keep it from going over. They made back-breaking portages over places where they had to hew out a trail for a quarter of a mile. At night when they rolled themselves into their blankets they were too tired to talk. But the hard training they had undergone before they started showed its results now. Although they were dead tired at night, they were always ready for the day's work in the morning. They suffered no ill effects from their wettings in the river, and their appetites were enormous.
The supplies, especially of bacon and flour, decreased alarmingly. Although signs of game were abundant, they did not like to lose time in hunting until they reached the prospecting grounds; but a couple of days later meat came to them. They had reached the foot of the worst rapid they had yet encountered. It was a veritable cascade, for the river, narrowing between walls of rock, leaped and roared over fifty yards of boulders. The portage led up a rather steep slope. The three boys, each heavily burdened, were struggling along in single file, when Horace, who was in front, suddenly sank flat, and with his hand cautioned the others to be silent.
"S-s-h! Lie low!" he whispered. "Give me the rifle!"
Macgregor passed the weapon to him, and then he and Fred wriggled forward to look.
Eighty yards away Fred saw the light-brown flank of a doe, and beside her, partly concealed by the underbrush, the head and large, questioning ears of a fawn. The animals were evidently excited, for as Horace lowered his rifle, not wishing to kill a mother with young, they bounded a few steps nearer, and stood gazing back at the thicket from which they had come. The wind blew toward the boys, and the roar of the cataract had drowned the noise of their approach.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the thicket, and two young bucks burst from the spruces and dashed past the doe and fawn toward the boys. At the same instant the lithe, tawny form of a lynx leaped out. It struck like lightning at the fawn, but the little fellow sprang aside and bounded after its mother. The lynx gave a few prodigious leaps and then stood, with tufted ears erect, glaring in disappointment. It had all happened within a few seconds, and the deer were disappearing behind some rocks and stunted spruces fifty yards to the right before the boys thought again of their need of meat.
At that moment, one of the bucks wheeled at the edge of the tangle behind which the other deer had passed. For an instant he presented a fair quartering shot.