“How you can find your way through these woods is a mystery to me,” Rex panted, as they stopped for a short rest.
Bob laughed. “I guess it’s a kind of an instinct that one acquires after a while, and then Kernertok has taught us a lot about it. You see, you can always tell the points of the compass by the bark on the trees. I’ll show you how to do it sometime.”
Neither Jack or the Indian had returned when at last, tired almost to the point of exhaustion, they reached the camp. They had been in but a short time, however, when Kernertok, followed by the dog, carrying his tail between his legs, arrived. The old man looked very downcast at first, but his stolid face lighted up as he caught sight of Rex.
“You find um, heap good,” he grunted.
The Indian did not seem at all tired, and he at once set about building a fire. He would not listen to the boys’ offer to help, insisting that they were “heap tired,” an accusation which they did not even try to dispute.
“Injun have supper heap soon,” he promised as he hurried about his work.
“I do hope Jack isn’t lost,” Rex said anxiously, as he stretched on his bed of spruce boughs.
“You needn’t worry any about him. He—”
Before he had time to finish the sentence the shrill call of the whip-poor-will rang through the woods.
“There he is now. Listen!”