“You don’t mean to say you saw Cousin Dave there? When?” burst out Tom.
“Sure I see him. I stop there for grub. I talk to him. He ask me if any prospectors up where I trap. Just ’fore I come out—two, three days ’fore I see you, mebbe.”
Tom gave an almost hysterical yell of laughter.
“Good gracious! To think you had the clue to the puzzle all the while. Charlie, I’ve got to go and bring him quick. Is it far?”
“I go git him,” Charlie offered.
Tom thought for a moment. He would prefer to stay himself, but Charlie could hardly explain the situation; he feared to commit it to writing. Besides, when he came to think of it, he had no writing materials. No, he would have to go himself, and he sought directions from the Indian.
With intense deliberation, Charlie explained that he had seen Dave at a small settlement where there was a mine. Its name was something like Roswick, and it was only two, three days by canoe. It was an easy road to find, with only one long portage. He could not say whether Dave was still there, of course; but the camp must have been just opening for the spring, and it was hardly likely that he would have left so soon.
“You go up this leetle river,” Charlie explained, “mebbe half-day, mebbe day, up to big carry place by long rapid. Make long portage then. Bad trail over portage—hard to find. But then you hit Wawista River, and you go up him, and then up Fish River, and come to Roswick, mebbe two, three days. I go quicker’n you.”
“I dare say you would,” said Tom, digesting this knowledge. “But if you help me to hit the long portage I’ll go alone. You stay here, and keep Harrison from getting away with this timber.”
“Yes, I lay for him,” said the Ojibway. “Hope he come back. He git good dose buck-shot next time.”