“Isn’t this a walleyed perch, Jimmy?” asked Brook.
“I guess so.” Jimmy had started in vigorously to clean the trout and now raised a loud voice in the ditty of “Ham and Eggs.” The others joined in, making the shore ring with the sound. The fact that supper was to consist mainly of fish made no difference. With young appetites and overflowing energy they managed to consume all of the day’s catch.
The next day Jimmy and Alf wanted to take things easy and do some swimming and lounging, but Brook wanted to do some more exploring. They finally decided to spend the day near the hut, and Brook made a mental note to do some exploring on his own when he could. While they were all in swimming, he paddled off alone, down the main stream. He had gone only a little distance before he was concealed from view by trees and a curving shore. He entered the main stream, which was quite wide as far as the fork.
There the division of waters left the wider stream to the right. But that to Brook’s left offered the prettier outlook. It stretched almost straight before him to some distance and descended in a little rapids. These looked easy, he thought, and though there were rocks, the water looked shallow enough for a good swimmer not to be troubled with any difficulty about reaching shore or a rock in case the canoe upset.
A little peninsula, dotted with green trees and bushes, jutted out from the left shore. Brook thought he caught a glimpse of someone moving there and started into the left fork of the stream.
“After all,” he reflected, “as the crow flies I’m only a couple of miles from camp. Maybe Jimmy and Alf have been out exploring and are over there on the point.”
Then he saw something that made him paddle faster than ever. He could hear the sound of dashing waters further on but he was too excited to pay any attention to it. What he had glimpsed looked like a human body, sprawling half in and half out of the bushes of a cove on the point.
Brook nosed his canoe into the cove, beached it, and climbed up the gentle incline. Then he saw that what had attracted his attention was only an old tattered coat. It was rain-shriveled and had obviously been flung over a rock to dry. But from the stream it had looked like the torso of a human body.
“Well,” Brook sighed with relief. “Thank goodness no one was hurt or killed.”
He went into the brush, past a few spruces, and found a small clearing. In the mud here were footprints which had obviously been made very recently. It had rained the night before, clearing just before dawn. Sometime between then and now someone had walked across the clearing and into the brush. And back again into the woods on the other side of the clearing, Brook reflected as he studied the footprints.