The pilot related his experience with the Canadian Indian, and the hunter nodded his head as the pilot repeated the Indian legend and directions.
"I know the place so well that ye have no need of a map."
"Ye ken the place without a map?" said Hugh.
"Aye! haven't I searched for it full eighteen years ago, and ten years ago, before there was a settler in the region; I hunted until I was weary. If ye find no more success than I found, ye will have your labour for your pains. But we can try. The place where we will land is there." The hunter placed his knotty finger on a portion of the map. All crowded around the table.
The old hunter's finger was placed on the map at the mouth of a small stream. A moment passed in silent contemplation.
"And now we must be off if we would do much to-night." The old hunter's words aroused all to action. A couple of pickaxes, a shovel and a crowbar, that were in readiness, were shouldered by the pilot, and Dick, at the hunter's suggestion, took up an old tin lantern, pierced with holes and having a candle within, to be used in an emergency. The hunter carefully extinguished the turnip lamp and drawing the door shut behind him led the way to the canoe. The tools were placed in the stern and then the pilot, followed in regular sequence by the hunter, Dick and Ande, took their stations, and soon under the steady sweep of four stout paddles the canoe, though heavily laden, glided up stream.
The evening was still, save for the cry of some wild bird of night and the plash of some wavelet breaking on the shelving shore. Trees and shrubbery, underbrush of the shores, glided by slowly, and were swallowed up in the obscurity of the regions passed. Here and there with a skilful sweep of the paddle the pilot changed the course of the canoe to escape contact with some rock or sunken log. Now and then the hunter would give a sign of silence, and the paddles in their incessant sweep would be stilled into inactivity, while the canoe would drift for a moment until the hand of the pilot in the bow grasped some over-swinging tree branch and stayed her downward course. A moment of silence, in which the hunter strained his ears, would ensue, and then with a shake of the head he would give the sign to proceed. Once he insisted much to the protests of the pilot of going ashore. They drew in to the heavily wooded bank and he disappeared with no change on his immovable countenance. The pilot grumbled to himself at this unnecessary caution. The old man was in his dotage or had become filled with childish fear, thought he, and so he informed the others when the hunter was absent.
Who was going to hurt them? Not the settlers, for they were all safe abed by this time. Not that wandering band of Shawnese. It would be too perilous for them in these days of peace and in a section already vacated by their fathers to make room for the settlers. After the first hour the work of paddling became less arduous, the force of the current had abated, and they shot into a long stretch of slightly moving water.
"Still Water," said the pilot. "It'll be easy from now on until we reach some distance above."