“Wait!” Case called. “You needn’t run away from me! Captain Joe is asking you to come back and take the grizzly with you. He wants some of that meat for his supper.”
Alex returned and the two boys skinned a shoulder and secured quite a quantity of bear meat, after which they resumed their tramp to the river. During this time Case had said nothing more to Alex about the disappearance of Gran He did not like the abrupt manner in which his questions had been answered, and resolved to let the boy tell what he knew in his own way and at his own convenience.
It took them a long time to get back to the river, and even then they found themselves some distance below the point where the Rambler lay, and where the fish had been cooking. The long, foaming rapids lay in front of them, indistinct in the dim light of the stars.
It would be impossible for the Rambler to drop down to them, for the rapids would have drawn her in, even with her full power opposing, and, besides, there was the fish, which might be worth uncovering. So the tired boys trudged slowly along the rocky bank, sometimes turning into the interior to avoid coves, and saw, in the darkness, danger rockets ascending to the sky from the deck of the Rambler!
CHAPTER XIII.—A MYSTERY AND A FISH SUPPER.
“Clay is getting anxious!” Alex observed, as a red rocket went hissing toward the stars. “He’s taken the right course to hurry us, at any rate,” he added. “It is a good thing we brought those rockets along with us. We may need them sometime worse than we do now.”
“How do you know how badly he needs them?” demanded Case. “You have been away for hours, and it is more than an hour since I went into the forest to search for you. A great deal may have happened in that time.”
“But Clay is safe enough,” Alex insisted. “If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be capable of sending up rockets. If any one had attacked him, or he had met with a serious accident, he wouldn’t be doing that, would he?”
“I hope you are right,” Case replied.
“He’s just sending a notice, in red fire, to us that supper is ready and waiting,” Alex laughed.