It was indeed a blind trail which they had left. The faint impression of a footprint here and a broken twig there were all that the boy had to guide him. Many times he lost it only to pick it up again after moments of searching which exasperated him as he felt that every minute was precious.
The trail was leading him almost due north into the wilds of Canada, and the going was getting harder the farther he went. This was to his advantage in a way as the denser the underbrush the plainer was the trail left by the party he was following.
By noon he estimated that he had made about fifteen miles. He ate a hurried lunch by the side of a small stream and before starting off again he sent out call after call with the radio. But he hardly expected results and so was not discouraged when they failed to materialize.
The trail was now fairly well defined owing to the thickness of the growth and he had but little trouble in following it. Rarely did he lose it and then it was quickly picked up again.
“If only they don’t strike a lake and take to a canoe,” he thought. “It would be like hunting for a needle in a hay stack if they did.”
By four o’clock the trail was leading him up the side of a high mountain densely covered with spruce and pine. As he ascended the underbrush began to get less dense although the trees were still so close together that he was able to follow the trail by the broken twigs.
“Guess they must have gone clear to the top,” he panted as, about half way up, he paused for a brief breathing spell.
An hour later he reached the top of the mountain. The trees had been thinning for the last hundred rods and just before he reached the top he saw, through an opening, a small cabin. It closely resembled the one he had seen the day before but was a trifle larger. Smoke was coming from the chimney, proving that the cabin was, or had lately been, occupied.
“Reckon I’ve got to the end of the trail,” he thought as he drew back and concealed himself behind a thick clump of bushes.
The cabin sat in a small clearing. There were no trees within twenty-five or thirty feet in front and on the sides but behind the trees grew so close that the branches of a big spruce reached over the cabin nearly to its middle.