Ben was ten, perhaps fifteen miles on the way back. What his object could have been in playing him such a dastardly trick, or what possible excuse he could make to Giles Packard for returning alone, Rupert could not conjecture.
He took it for granted that Boone would go back to his old home at Red Gulch. He did not dream of his plan of going to New York. If he had, this would have explained his sudden defection.
Rupert stood on the shore of the river and looked up the stream. Everything was calm and placid, and lonely. At the East he would have seen houses, on the banks and passing boats, but here he found himself alone with nature.
Without thinking especially what he was doing, he started to walk up stream, that is, along the river bank in an easterly direction.
"If I could only come across a boat," he soliloquized, "no matter how poor, I should think it a piece of great luck."
But it was too great luck for him. Still he kept on walking and looking about him, but he not only saw no boat, but no indication of any human presence.
He had walked quite five miles, as he judged from the passage of time, when at last he made a discovery. Moored to the bank was a dismantled raft, if such an expression is allowable. Rupert remembered now that on their trip down the river Boone had called his attention to it, saying: "It must have been left there by some party of travelers."
Rupert little thought how serviceable this would prove to him.
His eyes lighted up with joy, for he hailed the finding of the raft as a good omen, and foresaw how important it would prove to him.