"It sure is, Seth," replied the other, "an' I ain't got no idea of the track they ought to take, seem' as we come inter this country from the other way."
Jim Stapleton, for that was his name, pulled out a pipe and lit it. His companion, Seth Ingalls, shook his head as if in meditation. Then the two men whispered together for a time while the negro surveyed the boys with a blank expression. There was something about that look that puzzled them. It was not till afterward that they were to learn what it meant. The black man appeared to be about to speak, when the two men, who had withdrawn a little for their confab, came back.
"How come you so far from the river?" asked Jim, and Tom for a passing moment thought he detected suspicion in his tones.
"As I told you, to look after our trap line," said Tom.
"Humph! This is a funny time of the year to go trapping."
Tom, omitting all the details that he could, explained the reason for the line being set out before the early winter closed in. If the man had been suspicious, as Tom had for an instant fancied, the answer appeared to lull such thoughts.
"We were foolish to start off in that fog," went on Tom, "but of course I'd no idea that the compass would betray us like it did."
The men made no rejoinder to this. Then Jim spoke up and in his rough voice told the boys that they were camped not far from there and would be glad to make them welcome if they cared to come along.
The boys, after some hesitation, accepted this proposition. For one thing they were full of youthful curiosity concerning these men, and in the second place, after their experiences of the morning they did not feel inclined to resume their journey, which now bade fair to be a long and arduous one, till they had had some rest.