Helen Yardely did not pursue the matter further. Again she glimpsed depths that she did not understand, and as she ate her breakfast, she glanced from time to time at her companion, wondering what was between him and Ainley, and wondering in vain.
Breakfast finished, they struck camp, launched the canoe and began to paddle upstream. The current was strong, and their progress slow, but after some three hours they arrived at the junction of the two rivers. Then Stane asked a question.
"Which way did you come, Miss Yardely? Down the main stream or the other one?"
The girl looked towards the meeting of the waters doubtfully. "I do not know," she said. "I certainly do not remember coming through that rough water."
"Your uncle's party had of course travelled some way since I left Fort Malsun?"
"Oh yes; we had made long journeys each day and we were well on our way to—wait a moment. I shall remember the name—to—to old Fort Winagog."
"Winagog?" said Stane.
"Yes! That is the name. I remember my uncle mentioning it yesterday."
"Then you came down the main stream for a certainty, for the old fort stands on a lake that finds an outlet into this river, though it is rather a long way from here. We will keep straight on. No doubt we shall strike either your uncle's camp or some search party presently."
As it happened the conclusion he reached was based on a miscalculation. The only waterway to old Fort Winagog that he knew was from the main river and up the stream that formed the outlet for the lake. But there was another that was reached by a short portage through the woods from the subsidiary stream from which he turned aside, a waterway which fed the lake, and which cut off at least a hundred and twenty miles. Knowing nothing of this shorter route he naturally concluded that Helen Yardely's canoe had come down the main stream, and took the wrong course in the perfect assurance that it was the right one.