“You listen too much to these idle tales Pat tells, Sandy,” he remarked. “First thing I know, you’ll be wanting to go off and explore that other river, where no English settler has yet built his cabin, and only savage foes lurk.”
Sandy made no reply, but a flush crept over his face; and Bob sighed; for he knew that his brother had even then been indulging in dreams of some day seeing that other great river, lying still deeper in the wilderness that lay toward the land of the setting sun.
“Pat was telling us that trappers call this the most favored place for many miles along the river,” Bob remarked, as he glanced around him.
“Yes,” added the other, quickly, “and he said he had camped here once himself, when he came to the country of the Mississippi to see what the Frenchmen were doing, and find out if it was really as fine a place as others had reported. Why, even now that looks like the ashes of a campfire over yonder.”
“You are right, Sandy,” declared Bob; “some one has been in camp here, and not so long ago, too; for the ashes have never been rained on; and you remember that just three days ago we had a long siege of it.”
Bob had touched the flaky ashes with the toe of his moccasin when saying this. Versed in the knowledge of woodcraft, this was only a natural thing for the boy to remark. It fell from his lips just as readily as a lad of the present day might read a printed message that had been left in the crotch of a stick, after the departure of late campers.
“I wonder who they could have been, Indians, or French trappers heading for the nearest trading post with their winter’s catch of pelts?” mused Sandy, looking thoughtfully around him while speaking.
“The chances are the last,” Bob replied. “If Indians had been here we would see some signs to tell us of that fact. Chances are they would leave a broken arrow behind, or some feathers that were cast aside; and I do not see any such, do you?”
“No, not here,” replied Sandy, and then added: “It seems to me there is something lying there, in that clump of grass, that has been thrown aside. Wait until I get it, Bob; perhaps it may give us a clue concerning the men who made this fire.”
Carelessly he stepped aside, and, bending, picked up the object that had caught his attention. As Sandy stood staring, Bob advanced to his side with quick strides. Then he, too, seemed to have been turned into stone, for his eyes were glued upon what Sandy held in his shaking hand.