“An Indian?” said Tom, bending over it.
“White man,” corrected the trailer. “Indian walk straight; white man turn out toes like bird.”
He pointed to his own feet and to Tom’s for confirmation, and proceeded to follow up the trail with what seemed to Tom a super-natural acuteness.
“Him stop here—see—set down gun,” Charlie went on with his eyes on the ground. “Go on again, close up to cabin. Stop here—long time—look—listen. Mebbe think steal something. Then him turn round—go back. Let’s see where him go.”
But the earth was hard and dry with the long, hot spell, and even Charlie’s eyes failed to keep the trail more than a hundred yards from the barn. After breakfast they cast about in a wide circle. They did not pick up the trail again, but on the shore of the little river they found a place where a canoe had recently been beached. Moccasined tracks led away from it and returned.
There was no way to tell whether the canoe had gone up-stream or down. Getting into Tom’s canoe, the boys paddled down to the lake, reconnoitered, and then went up the river for a couple of miles, without being able to discover any trace of a landing.
The thought of that mysterious prowler in the dark preyed on Tom’s mind. He felt sure it must have been McLeod, scouting for a chance to “run him off.” He decided that a guard ought to be kept, and for the next two nights he did lie awake till long after midnight, when sleep overcame him. But there was no further sign of any visitor.
It might have been, after all, only some stray voyageur or Indian, attracted by the camp-fire; though in that case he would almost surely have come in openly. But the effect of the incident wore off, and the boys settled again to their steady watchfulness, hunting and scouting.
The hot, dry weather showed signs of breaking up. The sky clouded; a strong wind rose a few days later from the northwest.
“No good hunt to-day,” said Charlie, looking at the sky; but he went out nevertheless immediately after breakfast, leaving Tom at the camp.