He saw no more, but, turning into the woods, he managed to pick a partridge out of a tree. He followed his former trail toward the burned cabin, for he wanted to look over the ruins again for something useful. He laid down his rifle and game, and pulled the burned timbers apart pretty thoroughly. He took out a number of good boards that might some time be of service, and found a broken cup, an unbroken saucer, and a useless table knife, but nothing else that was worth taking away.
Walking about the clearing, however, he made a much more important find. He observed a slight mound of earth, some scattered boards and straw almost filling a depression in the ground, and he guessed that it was a last year’s potato pit. It had been emptied, of course, but Tom burrowed about among the earth and straw at the bottom and was rewarded by finding, one by one, nearly a peck of rather small scattered potatoes.
He yelled with delight. He had grown terribly nauseated with a meat diet. His mouth watered at the sight of these grubby little spuds. Taking off his coat, he wrapped them up sack wise in it, and started back immediately for his barn, which already had come to be home.
He had a real dinner that day—wild duck roasted in fragments, and potatoes baked in the ashes and eaten with salt and grease from the duck. Nothing had ever seemed so delicious. There might be still more potatoes in the pit—possibly some other vegetables. Stimulated by the food, his courage revived again, and he definitely resolved to stay here at least until the end of the spring trapping season. If necessary he could tramp down to Oakley and exchange a pelt or two for flour, pork, and sugar. As for a longer stay, there would be time to decide upon that later.
He went back that afternoon to the burned cabin to look for more potatoes, but, after turning the pit thoroughly out, he found only three. He shot a rabbit, however, that had come out of the woods to nibble at the sprouting grain in the clearing, and with the potatoes in his pocket and the rabbit at his belt he walked across to the river and down the shore.
A half a mile down, the stream broke into a series of rapids, swirling among black boulders. The rocks and piled drift logs at the foot of the rapids looked like a good place for mink, and he stopped to examine the “sign.” Minks and musquashes dwelt there, surely; their traces were abundant. He sat down on a log, looking the place over, considering where he might construct a few deadfalls, when he was startled by the sudden appearance of a canoe at the head of the rapid above him.
It shot into sight like an arrow, steered by a single paddler, a dark-faced young fellow, with a big pack piled amidships. The canoeman had not seen him; his whole attention was fixed on running the rapid; he was half-way down it, going like a flash, when Tom foolishly sprang up and shouted from the shore.
The paddler cast a quick, startled glance aside, and it was his undoing. The canoe swerved, and capsized with the suddenness of winking. Tom caught a glimpse of the overturned keel darting past him. The man had gone out of sight in the smother of spray and foam; then Tom saw him come up in the swirl of the tail of the rapid, struggling feebly.
The water was not waist-deep, and Tom rushed in and dragged him out. It was a young Indian, half choked and perhaps partly stunned, but not drowned by any means. He coughed and kicked when Tom deposited him on the shore; and, seeing, that he was safe, Tom made another plunge and rescued the big bale of goods that was drifting fast down-stream. The capsized canoe had lodged against a big half-submerged log lower down, and was secure for the time being.
