“But first this old man’s needs must be attended to.”
After disengaging his hands from the raft, Johnny helped the hunchback carry the old man up the hill to a dry spot. There they soon had him stripped of his sodden garments and wrapped in their own deerskins before a roaring fire.
There, for the first time, he opened his eyes and murmured something about “Green gold.”
It was four hours later that the boy was wakened from a short doze by the fire by the ring of a rifle shot close at hand.
“Someone near,” he told himself. “Wonder who?”
“Hello! Hello there!” he shouted.
“Hello yourself,” came back from the hills above.
Three minutes later the boy stood staring in astonishment at four persons who had just emerged from the brush, two Indians, a white man and a girl. There were tears of real joy in his eyes, for the man and girl were his long lost friends Gordon Duncan and Faye.
Their story was quickly told. No longer daring to trust themselves to the treacherous waters, the party had pushed forward on foot in the hope, as had been their good fortune, though in a manner quite unexpected, of finding some trace of the aged recluse and his craft.
As they followed an animal trail a young caribou had appeared before them. One of the Indians had shot it. This shot had told Johnny of their presence.