“You see, I said that things might be worse,” said Ian, as they lay on their backs beside each other that night after supper, each rolled in his blanket and gazing complacently at the stars.
“Yes, but you did not say that they might also be better. Why did not your prophetic soul enable you to see further and tell of our present state of comparative good fortune, Mr Wiseman?” asked Victor with a sigh of contentment.
“I did not prophesy, Vic; I only talked of what might be.”
“Vat is dat you say? vat might be?” exclaimed Rollin. “Ah! vat is is vorse. Here am me, go to bed vidout my smok. Dat is most shockable state I has yet arrive to.”
“Poor fellows!” said Ian, in a tone of commiseration.
“You indeed lose everything when you lose that on which your happiness depends.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Rollin, as he turned his back on his comrades and went to sleep.
A feeling of sadness as well as drowsiness came over Victor as he lay there blinking at the stars. The loss of their canoe and all its contents was but a small matter compared with the failure of their enterprise, for was he not now returning home, while Tony still remained a captive with the red man? Ian’s thoughts were also tinged with sadness and disappointment on the same account. Nevertheless, he experienced a slight gleam of comfort as the spirit of slumber stole over him, for had he not, after all, succeeded in killing a grizzly bear, and was not the magnificent claw collar round his neck at that very moment, with one of the claw-points rendering him, so to speak, pleasantly uncomfortable? and would he not soon see Elsie? and—. Thought stopped short at this point, and remained there—or left him—we know not which.
Again we venture to skip. Passing over much of that long and toilsome journey on foot, we resume the thread of our tale at the point when our three travellers, emerging suddenly from a clump of wood one day, came unexpectedly to the margin of an unknown sea!
“Lak Vinnipeg have busted hisself, an’ cover all de vorld,” exclaimed Rollin, with a look of real alarm at his companions.