On this particular day Bob and Sandy had planned a delightful trip up the river in their canoe, seeking new fields for hunting; and looking into the possibilities of the region for the trapping season, that would begin when the leaves were dropping from the trees in October.
It was Sandy who had given utterance to the exclamation with which this chapter opens. Bob had followed him out of the cabin. The sun was just peeping above the wooded hills away off in the east, and they sniffed the early morning air with delight; but one who could read the signs of the weather might have seen something about the coppery hue of that rising orb that showed that the long delayed Spring rains would soon burst upon the country.
Seeing where Sandy was pointing, Bob also looked, and his surprise exceeded that of his younger brother when he saw the object that was sticking in the middle of the sloping roof.
"Why, it is a feathered Indian arrow!" he cried.
"How strange! And what can that be tied to it, Bob?" asked the other.
"Here, boost me up and I will get it; then we can tell all about it," answered Bob, who did not believe in wasting time in talk when the solution of the mystery was so easy to learn.
So Sandy gave him a hand, and the agile lad quickly gained the low roof; for the new cabin, while commodious, was only one story high, with a low loft above the living room and just under the roof.
Bob took the arrow from the roof. He seemed to use more or less vigor in order to extract the flint head, showing that it had come down with considerable force after its aerial flight.
"Oh! I remember now," said Sandy, suddenly arousing.