"I don't know which would be worse," grumbled Jimmy.
"Whew! what if they should happen on our, canoes, after all the trouble we took to hide the same?" suggested Jack, looking as solemn as an owl.
"The walking is fairly decent all the way from Hudson Bay to Montreal, barring a dozen rivers to cross, a score of bogs miles and miles around, some pretty hefty mountain chains to pass over, and some more troubles too silly to mention," was the way Jimmy made light of the possible calamity.
Ned himself knew that it would be a terrible mishap should anything like this come to pass. He had thought it all over more than once, and even mapped out several plans for their guidance in case of such an event.
Walking back was next to an utter impossibility. They might manage with the aid of Francios and the Cree Indian to manufacture some sort of canoes, providing the proper kind of bark was to be procured this far north, which he doubted very much. Besides this, there was a slender chance that they might signal to some whaling vessel on the great bay and procure a berth for each of them aboard, so as to be landed at Halifax or Montreal, anywhere so that they could use the telegraph, and keep Mr. Bosworth and his company from investing a dollar in the wonderful copper mine, until the scouts reached home again.
So Ned, having looked further ahead than any of his chums, was not so much impressed by the gravity of the threatening evil, in case they did lose their highly valued canoes. He would begrudge the loss of his blanket and some other articles more than anything else, as they had memories connected with them of dead and gone events, in which he and some of the other boys of the trip had figured.
As they pushed on every little while they could catch glimpses of the talking smoke signals in the rear. Doubtless the fire that was supplying the smoke for this method of communicating with the distant posse had been built on the side of the hill in which the mine lay. That would account for their being able to see it for such length of time.
"Must be giving a whole history of the awful disaster," Jimmy muttered, after he had turned for the sixth time to see the smoke still waving in fantastic wreaths against the sky.
"Slow-pokes, that's what," ventured Teddy. "Why, when I was a mere tenderfoot I could send messages better than that."
"Don't find fault," advised Jack. "The longer it takes the signal man to send on his news, the better chance we'll have of slipping away before any trap can be laid or sprung, don't you see?"