The girl did not say, “Then why not turn back?” She knew the man too well. He had seen what seemed to him a duty. He could but go on.
“If only Johnny Longbow were here!” she thought.
* * * * * * * *
Johnny Longbow was surprised and not a little frightened on seeing the hunchback close beside him.
“What now?” he thought as his heart skipped a beat. “He was not so sleepy as I supposed. He’s followed me. Did he believe me to be running away? If so, what then?”
Whatever might be the strange creature’s feelings in the matter, the grin he bestowed upon Johnny was friendly enough. His actions during the next few minutes showed plainer than words that he knew more than Johnny did about the whole affair.
Selecting a smooth surface of snow, he scooped out a channel for a distance of twenty feet. This channel was a foot wide and two inches deep. Next, having searched out a bundle of brittle twigs, he began breaking one up and laying the pieces side by side in the bottom of the channel. When he had constructed a rude square some eight inches across, he selected certain bent and twisted bits of wood and, with a skill that seemed extraordinary, created a tiny image of a man with a paddle in his hand. This he placed well to the front upon the small platform. Back of this he built up a miniature sled and four dogs.
All this was Greek to Johnny. When, however, with a few clever twists the man had made a small boat and, after placing four figures within it, had dropped it in the shallow channel, it all came to Johnny like a flash.
“The snow channel represents the river,” he told himself. “The figures in the skin boat are my friends and the two Indians. But that before them must be a raft. What of that?”
He studied over this for some time without reaching a conclusion. That a raft was passing on before his friends, and that it carried a man, a sled and four dogs, this much was certain. But who was the man?