“You are pretty hard to wake, Mr. Carington.”
“Am I? What is it? Oh, we are going after bears. Hang the bears!” He rubbed his eyes, sat up, and said to Michelle, “Wake that boy. It will take ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
After Jack’s blanket was pulled away, and he himself rolled on to the tent-floor, he began to wake up.
“Coffee ready and lunch in knapsack, Michelle?”
“All right, sir.”
Carington got up, and, laughing at the guide’s difficulty in reviving Jack, went down to the beach, had a cold—a very cold—dip, and in a few minutes was dressed and ready, while Jack, but half awake, was making a boy’s still briefer toilet.
Meanwhile Carington looked into Ellett’s tent, and, seeing him sound asleep, hesitated a moment as to waking him, in order to give into his charge the money he had drawn. As he was about to speak, Michelle called out:
“Halloa! Canoe’s adrift! Take care, Jack. Paddle her in.”
Carington ran out of the tent, and saw that Jack was again ashore. He had put his gun and other traps in the boat, and then, jumping in hastily to arrange them, had caused the canoe to slip off into the current. The slight break thus caused in Carington’s mental processes made him for the time forget his intention. Ten minutes later he remembered it, as they were flying down-stream, and his hand chanced to fall on the bulging packet of notes in his pocket.