After perhaps an hour and a half of hard paddling they reached the little lake which marked the junction of Indian Creek with the Wolverine. Beyond this point the stream narrowed and navigation became more difficult. As the shores began to widen out at the forks Kendrick, whose eyes long since had become focused to the twilight of the stars, saw that McCorquodale had thrown up his hand and was motioning for him to cease paddling. At the same time his ear caught a new sound—a chant of voices rapidly growing louder.
Cautioning silence, McCorquodale swung the nose of the canoe abruptly towards the right bank and they slid noiselessly into the deeper shadows, where the detective caught hold of an overhanging branch and held the canoe stationary. Presently Phil was able to recognize the familiar words of an old voyageur chantey, a paddling song of the French-Canadian rivermen:
"En roulant, ma boulé, roulant; En roulant, ma bo-u-lé."
With paddles swinging in unison to the rhythm came four men in a large Indian canoe, speeding with the current down the centre of Indian creek. Peering from their concealment, Kendrick and the detective could discern the blacker outlines of the craft and its occupants as it sped forth from the gloom of the forest into the starlit area of the tiny lake. The great canoe was low in the water; for heaped in the centre of it was what was evidently a pile of freight, with two men in front and two behind. The steersman swung the prow around and on they went up the Wolverine without a pause in the sweep of the paddles or the swing of the song:
"Rouli roulant, ma boulé, roulant,
En roulant, ma boulé, roulant,
En roulant, ma bo-u-lé."
"French half-breeds," guessed Kendrick when the singing modulated in distance, "and they're heading for the lumber camp. What do you make out of that?"
"Looks like this 'Red' party them guys was talkin' about last night had hit camp. I'll lay even money them fellas has been down to the station fer another shipment o' booze," asserted McCorquodale. "We gotta do some careful gumshoein', old man. Them birds is feelin' their oats."
From the junction of the two streams it was only a matter of four or five miles to the foot of the rapids, and after a while they could hear the distant roar of the water. Paddling cautiously now and keeping well within the deeper shadows close to shore, they finally reached the spot where the tote road debouched on the river and without mishap disembarked and hauled the canoe out of sight into the bushes. In following the lumber trail there was the danger that they might meet some of the men from the camp; but after a whispered colloquy they decided it was a risk which had to be run. Since the old tote road had received its last "swamping out" it had accumulated enough underbrush, saplings and fallen limbs in spots to afford emergency concealment of a sort.
They had gone but a short distance into the woods, however, before both of them stopped abruptly and listened to a strange sound which carried to them eerily in the quiet night with all the mystery of the unaccountable. It was like the beat of a distant drum, a hollow tattoo that came and went at regular intervals:
Rumma-tumma-tum-tum . . . tum-tum! RUM-tummaty-tum-tum . . . tum-tum!