“I think,” McBain continued, “if anything has happened to poor Allan, it will be our duty to get back as speedily as may be to Scotland, and forego our voyage farther north.”
Now, at that very moment Allan and his dog were within sight of the camp fire; he was holding Oscar by the collar, and meditating what would be the best and least startling way to make known his presence.
Should he fire his rifle in the air? That would be better than suddenly appearing like a ghost among them.
But Oscar settled the difficulty in a way of his own. He bounded away from his master’s grasp with a joyful bark, and next moment was careering like a mad thing round and round the group at the fire.
This way of breaking the intelligence of Allan’s safety was very abrupt, but it was very satisfactory.
When the surprised greetings with which Allan was hailed had in some measure subsided—when he had explained the part that Oscar had played, and told them that but for the great fire he never would have believed that he had been going eastwards instead of west—then McBain said, in his old quiet manner,—
“You see, boys, there is a Providence in all things, and, on the whole, I’m not sorry that this should have happened.”
But twenty years at the very least seemed to have fallen off the load of the trapper’s age.
Seth knew what men were, and so he heaped more wood on the fire, and set about at once getting supper ready.
Sapper would never have suggested itself to anybody if Allan had not returned.