"Perhaps it isn't just what you think," said Ned, quietly.
"Is there anything wrong?" demanded Jack, while poor Jimmy's lower jaw fell, and he could only stand there and stare.
"The worst almost that could have happened to us," Ned replied sadly.
"The boats were here then, and have been stolen?" asked Frank breathlessly, while he as well as the other boys turned pale with apprehension, for it was a genuine calamity that faced them now.
"Look there and there, and you'll see where they rested among the reeds," Ned told them. "Yes, and here's a piece of greasy paper I remember seeing Jimmy toss overboard, when he was getting out of his boat. We've struck our one bad streak, after all, boys, I'm sorry to say. They ran on our boats, and we're left in the lurch up here, five hundred miles from anywhere!"
CHAPTER XIV.
BLINDING THE TRAIL.
For almost a full minute nobody said a word. Indeed, the tremendous nature of this discovery seemed to have very nearly paralyzed them, so that one and all could only stand there and stare at the places where they could tell their prized canoes had recently rested.