If they did not find him at a certain logging camp, at least they were likely to pick up a clue there as to where he had gone, and thus could follow after him. Rob had intended finding a competent guide, but it chanced that there was an unusually heavy demand for experienced woodsmen that season, and they met with several disappointments, until finally the others had urged Rob to make the plunge himself unattended.
They knew that he could be depended on to lead them safely, for Rob had considerable experience in woodcraft, and, besides this, carried a reliable chart of the region they were traversing.
Accordingly they had set forth valiantly, and at the time we meet them had been tramping for two days. According to Rob’s figuring, they must be getting close to the logging camp where, possibly, they would find Uncle George; at the same time he also knew that they were near the International Boundary.
“If you take a look over that way, due north, fellows,” Rob was telling the other boys, as they sat there on the log, and pointing as he spoke, “you can see for several miles. Notice that big clump of hemlocks on the rise yonder, along the near horizon? Well, unless I miss my guess, that’s Canada!”
“But I don’t see the line, Rob,” observed Tubby vaguely.
At this remark Andy Bowles burst forth in a laugh.
“Why, listen to the innocent, will you, Rob! Honest, now, I believe Tubby thinks the International Boundary is a real line drawn across the Divide from the Atlantic to the Pacific, to mark the division of Uncle Sam’s property from the Dominion of Canada and the Great Northwest Territory!”
“Oh, shucks! Of course I was only joking,” stammered the confused Tubby. “So that’s Canada, is it, Rob? Almost any old place across the line we’d likely find that conditions resembled Belgium and Northern France somewhat, with young men drilling at every crossroads, artillery companies rushing to stations to be sent across the sea, cavalry horses being herded, cattle slaughtered for meat to keep the army supplied, wheat trains heading toward some Atlantic port to be shipped abroad to feed those millions of fighters. Whee! It’s hard to believe that peaceful country over there can be Canada!”
“Oh, that’s only the border, Tubby, you see,” explained Rob, always ready to accommodate. “Farther back I’ve no doubt all those things are daily taking place, for you know Canada has already sent over three hundred thousand soldiers across the sea to fight for the Cause of Civilization. You and I have been at the front, Tubby, and we know the spirit that animates most of those men among the Allies; also how they expect to stick to their job, now they’ve begun, until it’s finished.”
“You mean, do you, Rob,” interrupted the listening Andy, who had not had the same good fortune as the others to see some of the fighting across in Belgium and Northern France, “that even while the Dominion is being shaken from east to west, right here along the border it’s just as it always was?”