"Look!" said the Cree guide, pointing backward; and immediately the scouts saw three columns of very black smoke ascending straight toward the sky.
CHAPTER XII.
THE TALKING SMOKE.
"Well, I declare if they don't use the same sort of signals the scouts do down our way!" exclaimed Jimmy, looking rather disgusted, as though he had caught some one stealing his thunder.
Ned had to laugh at the blank expression of his assistant's face.
"Why, Jimmy," he said, "you forget that the scout movement is only half a dozen years old. It began after the Boer war, when General Baden-Powell saw what a great thing it would be for the whole British Nation, if every boy learned a thousand things about all creation, useful things at that. And, Jimmy, don't forget that smoke was used to signal with for hundreds of years before ever the white man landed on the shores of America."
"Say, that's right, Ned, they always made fires with their flints, didn't they? And these men up here, hunters, trappers, or whatever they may be, inherited the Injun way of sending messages. Sure, I knew it all along. The only trouble with me is I go and forget things. But what d'ye think they are doin' sending out that old smoke signal?"
"They've got friends within seeing distance, because smoke can be sighted many miles away, especially when it rises as straight as it's doing now," Jack ventured to interpose.