“Are you hurt much?” asked the boys in a breath.
“Pootty tidy, young gents; but I ain’t going to holler about it. There’s no time. I don’t mind going fast, you know, either in a boat or on horseback, but I do hate for the boat or the horse to take the bit in its teeth and bolt as this did just now.”
“What do you propose doing, Naylor?” said Brazier. “It is impossible to get back, and yet I should have liked a few hours more at that clearing.”
“And them you shall have, sir, somehow. I’m not the man to be beaten by a boat without making a bit of a fight for it first. Let’s get my breath and my arms—ah! they’re coming back now. I can begin to feel ’em a bit.”
He sat rubbing his biceps, laughing at the boys, Brazier looking up and down-stream uneasily the while.
“Do you know exactly where this river runs, Naylor?” he said at last.
“Well, not exactly, sir. I know it goes right through the sort of country you want to see, and that was enough for me; but I’ve a notion that it goes up to the nor’-west, winding and twisting about till it runs in one spot pootty nigh to the big river we left, so that we can perhaps go up some side stream, drag the boat across a portage, and launch her for our back journey over the same ground or water as we came up.”
“But we shall never get back to the lake,” said Rob, as he glanced at the running stream which glided rapidly by, making the boat drag at its tethering rope as if at any moment it would snatch itself free.
“Never’s a long time, Mr Rob. We’ll see.”
He turned to his men, gave them a few instructions in a low tone of voice, and three seated themselves on the port side, while Shaddy and the fourth, a herculean fellow with muscles which bulged out like huge ropes from his bronzed arms, stood in the bows, the latter with the boat-hook and Shaddy with the rope.