“Bones! Toma—bones!”
The remaining member of the party, swarthy, dark, soft-footed, agile as a panther, grinned as he stooped down to tie the strings of one of his moccasins.
“Mebbe this not right place after all,” he said.
The first speaker turned swiftly at this and regarded the stooping figure. What had induced Toma to make that remark? The description that had been given them by Mr. Donald Frazer, factor at Half Way House, fitted this island exactly: an island in a lake of many islands, an island with a tall rock. Dick Kent remembered as well as if it had been only yesterday.
“It’s three hundred miles northwest of here in a country of innumerable lakes,” the factor had directed them. “These lakes all drain into the Half Way River. They are all very close together, forming a sort of chain. Most of the lakes are dotted with a few islands, but there is one lake, near the center of the chain, that has more islands than all the rest—scores of small wooded islands. On one of these you will find a tall, spindling rock. The island with that rock is the island of the dinosaur.”
So remembering this conversation, Dick could not believe with Toma that they might have come to the wrong place. Here was the wooded island. Here was the spindling rock. Here was the lake of many islands.
“Why don’t you think it’s the right place?” he demanded.
The young Indian straightened up quickly, his eyes twinkling.
“Why you get so worried, Dick?” he inquired blandly. “I no say this the wrong place. Mebbe so, mebbe not. Plenty islands I see in other lakes an’ plenty rocks too.”
“But not a rock as tall as that one,” objected Sandy.