On their side of the river, less than a quarter of a mile away, gently eddying among the tops of the spruce and balsam, were thin spirals of smoke.
“A campfire!” shrieked Sandy in wonder. “Oh boy, we’re in luck! Maybe we can get help—a canoe or a gun.”
Unmindful of his great weariness and tortured feet, he had started out on a dead run, when Dick called to him sharply.
“Just a minute, Sandy. Not so fast. It may be Wolf Brennan and Toby McCallum.”
Sandy stopped dead in his tracks.
“What’s that? Are you mad? If they had come up the river, we’d have seen them.”
“I’m not so sure. They might have passed us while we slept, or yesterday when we were in the woods after that experience with the wild man. One can never be too sure, Sandy. Our best plan is not to rush that camp, to make sure who they are before we let ourselves be seen.”
“That is right, Dick,” agreed Toma. “Brennan an’ McCallum very bad; also very clever fellow. No tell just where they may be now.”
Sandy, quick to see the wisdom propounded by his two friends, nodded in agreement while he waited for them to come up. They left the flat, sandy shore, where they could easily be seen, and proceeded thereafter through the jack-pine and willows farther up along the slope. Inside of twenty minutes they had approached to within a short distance of the place where the smoke was ascending.
At first they could see no one. They waited in a breathless inactivity. The brush was very thick and, from where they crouched, the boys could see only the light streamers of smoke drifting up from among a heavy copse of willow. Indeed, to determine who might be sitting around the campfire, the boys soon saw that it would be necessary to creep even closer. This they did not care to do for fear that the sound of their light movement might be detected. If only one of the campers would rise up behind that brush. For ten long minutes they waited, undecided whether to take the chance or not, For ten long minutes they watched the smoke rising, curling and eddying up through the trees. Putting his hands to his lips, Dick rose stealthily and tiptoed forward another twenty feet, this time more to the right. Then through a narrow opening in the thicket he caught sight of a kneeling form which he recognized instantly. It was McCallum! And as McCallum put up a hand and leaned to one side to evade a momentary puff of smoke from the fire, he saw Wolf Brennan and another man. The third person sat in such a position that Dick caught only his profile and so did not immediately recognize him.