"We're sure enough up against it this time, boys," Teddy affirmed.
"And have been on other occasions, remember, when things came out all right, and we won in the end." Jack reminded the doubter.
"Let's make up our minds we're going to beat these chaps at their own game, and that'll be half the battle," Frank told them.
"But I think Ned is all right when he says, 'we ought to cut stick and get away from here as soon as we can,'" Jack gave as his opinion.
In fact, the guides were manifesting more or less impatience. They apparently understood that the enemy would be apt to turn up here again, sooner or later; and could not comprehend why the scouts should always want to compare notes, before doing anything like making a change of base. Francois and the Cree were accustomed to making most of their moves through instinct; while with the scouts those same things did not come naturally, but had to be reasoned out, which made considerable difference.
One last look did they give toward the reeds that had promised to be so friendly, only to betray the confidence the boys had placed in them; and after that the little party moved off.
"But say, won't they follow after us, Ned?" asked Jimmy, when he failed to see the guides getting busy with trying to destroy all evidences of their passage, as he had fully expected would be the case.
Some of the other scouts showed by their expectant manner that they were also wondering what it all meant. Ned took it upon himself to enlighten them.
"If I read their meaning right," he ventured, "that is just what they want to do at first, make the men believe we've started to tramp back over all those hundreds of miles of ground. Before long, they'll do something to hide the trail so only a wolf's keen scent could find it; and then we'll turn around again, so as to face toward Hudson Bay. How, Francois?"
The old voyageur had listened to the explanation offered by Ned. He grinned and wagged his head, as though quite tickled at the idea of the boy understanding so well what the little game was.