“That’s another good suggestion,” Clay agreed.
“The west river,” the old captain went on, “is a small stream in comparison with the other. There’s a funny thing about it that I never could understand. I was in there once, landing supplies for a surveying party and it seemed to me then that that stream never grew to any size until it came within a mile or so of the isthmus which connects the peninsula with the main shore.”
“Then there must be some tributary of good size there,” said Clay.
“That’s just the point,” the captain went on. “There isn’t any tributary of good size there. The peninsula is very narrow and slopes steeply to the west. In fact, the river to the east is several feet higher than the one on the west. That’s one reason why I think there never was any channel through there.”
“That is true,” Clay answered. “You see, a channel through there, running at the rate the incline would naturally call for, would cut a hole through that neck of land about as wide as one of the main rivers. Why, it would drain the big river and turn all the water into the small stream. At least, it looks that way to me.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” the captain answered, “there’s a lot of water in that east river. Still, there’s no channel there and never was so far as I can understand. Now, what I can’t understand is, how this west river gets so big all at once. There may be a creek running in at the other side, but if there is, I never found it.”
“You seem to understand that district pretty well,” Clay laughed.
“Didn’t I tell you I knew the whole St. Lawrence river south, north, and bottom?” demanded the captain. “Why, when I took that load of provisions in for the surveyors, there were Indians enough along the shore to give a city a population as large as Chicago’s. And there were bears, and wolves, and deer, and beaver, and all sorts of wild creatures in the woods—thick as berries in a swamp.”
During this conversation the two had been watching the shore where the light had sprung up. With a night glass they could see figures passing in front of the blaze, but the beacon, if such it was, soon died down to embers, and nothing more was heard from the shore.
They both listened for the sound of oars in the river, but none came. The tide was running in and the current was running out, with the result that great ranks of waves lay across the wide river like winnows in a field of grain. The wind blew sweeping up from the gulf, opposing the current, and, taken altogether, it was as dangerous and uncertain a night on the river as one could well imagine.