“But we should be on the way home!” declared Bob. “Father and Pat must know of this new outrage that we have suffered at the hands of these miserable trappers, who would rather spend their time stealing game that others have caught than to attend to a line of their own traps. If father lets us, Sandy, make sure we will take Pat with us, and start on the trail at once.”
“To regain those little treasures mother mourns as lost forever; that is just fine,” said Kate, eagerly, for she was a backwoods girl, and could recover quickly, after even such a shocking experience.
“Not to speak of our wonderful belt,” added Sandy, who was slipping on some of the clothes he had discarded.
In a few minutes they were hurrying back along the shore. The boat had been pulled up on the beach and the painter fastened to a convenient tree, so that the chances were they would find the craft there, when some one came back after it.
Neither of the boys felt like paddling two miles against the current of the Mississippi just then. Besides, they were anxious to get back to their father. Perhaps the absence of Kate might have been discovered by this time, and considerable anxiety have been aroused.
But, when they came to the spot where their packs of venison had been left, the boys could not resist the temptation to obtain them again. Meat was needed too badly in the settlement to think of taking chances of the wolves running off before morning with the entire stock.
They had apparently entirely forgotten about having been tired before this new and surprising thing came about. At least, to see the nimble way in which the two boys advanced along the river shore, no one would think they exhibited the least sign of weariness.
In due time they approached the bustling scene where the men were chopping so industriously. Toward one cabin that seemed to be about finished they hastened. Mrs. Armstrong, chancing to come to the open door, saw them, and something seemed to tell her the boys were bringing bad news, for she waited for them there, and her face did not seem so filled with sunshine as it had been when they first sighted her.
When the story of Kate’s second abduction had been told, Mr. Armstrong was furious. He readily agreed to the proposition advanced by Sandy, that he and his brother be allowed to take up the trail of the rascally Frenchmen as soon as Pat came home, as it happened unfortunately that the Irish trapper was somewhere out in the woods just then.
The other men were called in, and Kate told her little story again. Black looks told plainly what they thought; and for either Larue or Lacroix to have been seen by any one of those English settlers just then, would have undoubtedly meant his death warrant.