Dick gritted his teeth again, but resolved to keep his mouth shut. He must save his breath to get Sandy and Toma out of the mess. It must have been Govereau’s men watching him when he had felt so queer on the trail of the wounded moose.
Dick did not resist the moose-hide thongs as they were bound mercilessly tight about his wrists. Sandy and Toma followed his example. There were other ways of getting the better of Govereau, and it might be easier if they submitted, or seemed to submit, mildly to capture.
They could see one of the men slicing steaks from the moose haunch before, at a guttural command, they were started off into the woods, northward along Limping Dog Creek.
An hour’s tramping brought them to Govereau’s camp, four miles up the creek. The scar faced Indian was there to greet them. He leered at the captives hatefully. Dick felt that the Indian knew one of them had shot him at the camp forty miles away, and that the savage would do anything in his power to wreak vengeance.
Govereau had made his headquarters in an old cabin, deserted by some trapper. There were two rooms, and the three young captives were shoved into the smaller of them, their hands still bound behind them. Probably their captors realized they would soon untie themselves, but since with the huge oaken bolt shot on the door, there was no way of getting out of the room, they did not bother themselves about it.
“Well?” Dick turned to Toma and Sandy, when at last they were left alone.
Toma’s face was as stolid as ever. Sandy had nothing to say. He sat down on the bunk at one side of the room.
“I guess we’re in a pickle, all right,” Sandy said at last.
Dick paced back and forth twice, then stopped before the door, which he carefully inspected. The door seemed heavy enough to repel the attack of a battering ram, say nothing of three boys. Dick turned back to Sandy and Toma. “Govereau will question us now, I suppose,” Dick spoke rapidly. “And he’ll probably take us out separately to see if our stories are the same. He’ll want to know just how much we know of Henderson’s movements and what we are trying to do against him.”
“What shall we say?” Sandy scratched his head. Toma said nothing. The young Indian seemed to feel that the situation was beyond his ability to handle.