“No, don’t kill anybody!” Tom cried; but the Indian looked at him reproachfully.
“How I keep um off if I no shoot um?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Tom admitted. “But if Dave’s where you left him I ought to be back before those other fellows turn up again.”
Tom made his preparations to start without delay. He was to take Charlie’s canoe, and he laid out a due proportion of food—pork, tea, sugar, flour—enough to last him two or three days. Charlie stirred up a large pan of flapjack and baked it—enough for one day at any rate. Long before noon they were ready to start, and Charlie accompanied him as far as the “long portage” to make sure that he should not miss the spot.
The smoke had dissipated; the sky was clearing, and the sun showed a tendency to come out. The first half-mile of the route up the little river lay between burned and charred thickets, and then the fire limit ceased. The stream was low, and several times they had to get out or make a short carry, and it was afternoon when they reached the point where Charlie said he should strike across country to the Wawista. They stopped here to make tea; then Charlie indicated the direction once more and without a word of farewell faded away into the thickets, starting back to the treasure he was to guard.
Two miles due north was the direction, and Charlie said there was an old blazed trail, “hard to find.” He would have to make two trips, once with his pack and once with the canoe. The pack was not very heavy, not more than fifty pounds, and Tom shouldered it and set off with a light heart.
The blazed trail was indeed hard to find, and Tom lost it almost immediately. He did not concern himself much, however, for he knew that if he kept due north he could not fail to hit the river eventually. But fifty pounds on the shoulders means much, over rough ground, and he did not have a regular tump-line. Hard trained as he was, he had to sit down several times and rest. He gasped, in fact, and the sweat burst out in streams; but he kept on and finally broke through a dense belt of willows and saw the Wawista, a broad, slow stream winding away toward the west.
He cached his pack in the low fork of a tree, and went back leisurely for his canoe. This was an even more awkward load to transport. Its length concealed the ground ahead; it tangled itself with the underbrush; two or three times he tripped and fell with the canoe on top of him. He lost his own back trail, and had to drive straight ahead, so that at last he came out on the river a quarter of a mile from the spot where he had left his dunnage.
He secured it, however, and sat down for a final rest before beginning the canoe voyage. It was growing late in the afternoon. The sun shone clearly and warmly now. Not a breath stirred the leaves, fresh and green from the recent rain, and the river flowed with a peaceful murmur. But a feeling of uneasiness came suddenly upon the boy, as if he was under the eyes of some enemy.
It was so strong that he stood up and peered about, rifle in hand. But nothing stirred in the forest, except two noisy whiskey-jacks that discovered him at that moment. It was an attack of nerves, he told himself; but he could not resist a strong inclination to be off immediately.