CHAPTER FIFTEEN
End of the Trail
Sleeping in a pup tent was out of the question that night. Ankle-deep mud covered the ground as the rain continued unabated. Russ Steele bunked in with Paul Landers and the boys were invited to use three empty cots in one of the Canadian squad tents. It was pleasant sitting around in a circle on the cots by the dim light of an oil lamp, hearing the drops pelt and drum on the canvas sides of the tent. They shared these quarters with two older men who were veterans of a thousand outdoor adventures, and their stories held the boys spellbound.
But by ten o’clock none of them could keep their eyes open, and they put out the light and rolled up in their blankets. For nine hours, Sandy slept the deep, untroubled sleep of exhaustion until his uncle shook him gently awake the next morning.
“Time to break camp,” Russ told him. “The helicopter pilot is going to give us a free ride back to Red Lake. I don’t imagine Quiz will be able to do much walking on that bad leg for a while.”
“He’s not the only one,” Sandy groaned. “I feel about ninety years old. Every muscle in my body aches.”
“You’ll loosen up once you start moving around.”
In the next cot, Jerry pushed himself up drowsily on one elbow. “I’ll never be the same again.”
Russ Steele laughed. “Hey now, that’s no way to talk. You boys have almost three weeks of your vacation to go.”
“What!” Jerry squawked. “It feels as though we’ve been living in the woods all our lives.”
“Too much for you, eh?”