"Joe, your smuggling friends must have taken them."
"Non. He gat plenty log in Canada, him."
"What, then, has become of them?"
"Dunno. Maybe dev catch him."
"It is a human devil of some kind, then, and he must have carried them still farther up the coast, for we should have seen them if they had been carried the other way."
"Oui, m'sieu."
"Give way, men! I'm going to find those logs if they are anywhere on Keweenaw Point."
So the light skiff shot ahead, with the two Bohemians rowing, and the others in bow and stern, watching the coast sharply as they slipped past its rocky front. They were already beyond any point at which Peveril had previously discovered logs, and were rapidly approaching the place of his mystery. He could see the jutting ledge, and was eagerly scanning the cliffs above it, when suddenly Joe held up his hand with a warning "Hist!"
Without a word Peveril gave the signal to stop rowing, which was instantly obeyed. In the silence that followed they heard a sound of singing. It was a plaintive melody, sung in a girlish voice, untrained, but full and sweet. To his amazement Peveril recognized it as one of the very latest songs of a popular composer, whose music he had supposed almost unknown in America. The voice also seemed to be close at hand.