The steamer had already slowed down, and its movement now was scarcely perceptible. Reynolds looked at the small approaching craft, and to his surprise he saw that it was a large canoe, being paddled by four stalwart Indians. There were several white men on board, although he could not distinguish their faces. Who could they be, and where had they come from? he wondered. A man standing nearby asked the same question, though no one seemed to be able to give a satisfactory answer.
By this time the canoe was so near the steamer that from his position Reynolds could see nothing more owing to the men crowding the rail. He glanced toward the girl just as she turned suddenly away from the side of the steamer and walked rapidly across the deck. She seemed much agitated, and the flush had fled her face, leaving it very white. All this Reynolds briefly noted, and when she had disappeared through a door leading into the observation room, he stood wrapped in thought, wondering as to the cause of the remarkable change that had so suddenly taken place. Was there some mystery connected with her life, and had she recognized someone in the canoe she did not wish to meet? He determined to learn what he could about the picked-up men, and to keep his eyes and ears open for further developments.
CHAPTER III
A BIG BLAZIN' LAUGH
"Fine sight that, sir."
Reynolds turned sharply at these words, and saw the old man with the long beard and flowing hair standing at his left. Although he himself was almost six feet in height, he seemed small by the side of this stranger, who was looking calmly out over the water toward the fog-bank, which had now lifted and was slowly dissolving.
"Ye don't see the likes of that often," he continued, "an' it ain't everyone who kin read its meanin', either."
"What do you see there?" Reynolds asked, more interested in hearing the man's deliberate drawl than the meaning of the fog-bank.
"Wall, it seems to me that a fog-bank hasn't a ghost of a chance fer life when the sun hits it good an' hard."
"That one hasn't, anyway," Reynolds replied, as he watched the cloud gradually thinning and drifting away.