Charles looked disdainful.
“Work hard all winter,” he said. “Trap—hunt—walk snow-shoes. Rest in summer. Say, Tom, you come with me next winter. We trap—hunt—ketch heap fur.”
“I don’t know, Charlie,” Tom answered, regretfully. He wondered where he would be next winter. He had little notion of what he ought to do. He might go to Uncle Phil’s farm, as he had at first intended; but this seemed now to promise nothing. Almost he regretted not having joined Dave in the gold hunt. On the whole it seemed better to go back to Toronto for the time. His clothes were torn; his shoes were almost worn out. He had a little money, however—more than he had started with. He could buy clothes, and then, perhaps, secure a job as before as a summer fire ranger. This might enable him to pay his way at the university, for he was determined to have no more of his former parasitic existence. He felt five years older, ten times as self-reliant as when he had left Toronto only a few months ago; and the thought of his college years of casual study, much foot-ball and hockey, and thoughtless scattering of money filled him with disgust.
“I’ve acted like a kid,” he reflected. “Time I was getting grown up a little. No wonder father wouldn’t have me around the business.”
Anyhow, he had to return the canoe to Oakley, and at dawn he bade Charlie farewell and started down the river again.
“You come back, Tom,” the Ojibway called after him. “I wait for you.”
He went straight down Little Coboconk without looking again at the lost treasure, and entered the river. A mile down he noticed the opening of a well-cut trail,—doubtless the road to Uncle Phil’s place,—and he wondered that he had never observed it before. He felt rather languid from the recent wearing days, and from short sleep for two nights; the river ran smoothly, and he drifted along without any great efforts at paddling, so that it was well into the afternoon when he came into Oakley.
He was late for the stage to the railway, which left only in the forenoon; and he had to spend the rest of the afternoon and the night at the hotel. But the rest was welcome. He managed to improve his wild and wilderness-worn appearance a little, and took the train next morning.
The city seemed strangely noisy, crowded, hot, and dirty when he came out from the station and boarded a street-car to go home. His own tattered and weather-beaten appearance seemed even stranger to the passengers on the car. He was carrying his rifle still, and he must have looked like a trapper from the utmost frontiers. The attention he attracted was so embarrassing that Tom was in haste to get home. He walked hurriedly for a block up Avenue Road after leaving the car and saw his house in the distance; but even then he perceived that the curtains were down everywhere and that the place had a vacant, deserted look.
The front door was locked. He rang the electric bell repeatedly, but in vain, and then tried the side door and the back door, with no more success. Not even a servant was at home. He peeped into the garage through a crack in the door. The car was gone. Evidently the whole family had gone away, though it was the first time he could remember that his father had taken a summer vacation.