Mary and Clare clung to each other like sisters. Stonor remained at the door watching the clear space between the shack and the river. Nothing stirred there. Stonor heard no more untoward sounds.
Fortunately for the nerves of the women the nights were short. While they watched and prayed for the dawn, and told themselves it would never come, it was suddenly there. It came, and they could not see it come. The light stole between the trees; the leaves dressed themselves with colour. A little breeze came from the river, and seemed to blow the last of the murk away. By half-past three it was full day.
“I must go out and look around,” said Stonor.
Clare implored him not to leave them.
“It is necessary,” he said firmly.
“Your red coat is so conspicuous,” she faltered.
“It is my safeguard,” he said; “that is, against humans. As for animals, I can protect myself.” He showed them his service revolver.
He left them weeping. He went first to the big spruce-tree behind the house. He immediately saw, as he had expected, that a man had leaped out of the lower branches. There were the two deep prints of moccasined feet; two hand-prints also where he had fallen forward. He had no doubt come down faster than he had intended. It was child’s play after that to follow his headlong course through the bush. Soon Stonor saw that he had slackened his pace—no doubt at the moment when Stonor turned back to the shack. Still the track was written clear. It made a wide detour through the bush, and came back to the door of the room where Mary had been sleeping. The man had taken a couple of hours to make perhaps three hundred yards. He had evidently wormed himself along an inch at a time, to avoid giving an alarm.
When Mary cried out he had taken back to the bush on the other side of the shack. Stonor, following the tracks, circled through the bush on this side, and was finally led to the edge of the river-bank. The instant that he pushed through the bushes he saw that one of the bark-canoes was missing. Running to the place where they lay, he saw that it was the one with the willow-bushes that was gone. No need to look any further. There was nothing in view for the short distance that he could see up-river.