“No; but the map of the Geological Survey will,” said the gentleman who kept the store in the settlement. In another instant he brought out a large map, where the island was clearly laid down. “All right, thank you,” said Mr Norman: “away we go.” The two men laid hold of the fore-end of the poles; Philip and Mr Norman behind. The ice was far from secure; it did not crack nor bend, but it evidently rested on the water, and such ice generally gives way without any warning or sound. The party, however, pushed dauntlessly on, steadily, but not so fast as Philip would have liked. He thought, indeed, at last, that they must have passed the island; but Mr Norman was too good a navigator for that—it rose up suddenly before them.
Philip shouted, “Harry—Charley—all right, boys—hurrah!” but there was no answer. Again he cried out; no one replied. “They are hiding to try to frighten me, Mr Norman,” he said, laughing,—“the rogues.” The party landed and looked about. “O very well, they cannot be here, and so we’ll go away,” he cried out, thinking that would make them appear; it had no such effect. Philip began to grow anxious: they would certainly not carry their joke so far. He went round the island, sometimes on the ice and sometimes on shore. As he was hurrying on, what was his dismay to see a large hole in the ice: his poor young brothers had met the fate which he had so narrowly escaped. He saw exactly how it had happened; one had gone through, and the other in trying to help him out had fallen in likewise. There had been a struggle, as there were prints of feet and knees in the snow round it; some the water had washed over.
His exclamations of grief brought his companions to the spot. “Not so certain that anything dreadful has occurred,” said Mr Norman. “You told me you had killed a bear: now Bruin has been deprived of his hinder legs, which make the best hams; and his four paws, which turn into good soup; and I don’t think that they would have walked off by themselves. Come, let us examine your hut. Ah! the skin too has disappeared.”
“Yes, and I see that the remainder of the fish which D’Arcy gave us are not here,” said Philip, somewhat relieved. “But perhaps the island has been visited by some trapper, who would naturally carry off the most valuable parts of the bear.”
“Ah! but look here: if the island has been visited by a trapper, he came with a vehicle on runners from the direction of your clearing, and returned to the same place. There are the marks clear enough still; an Indian would have told us exactly how things occurred.”
“I wish that we had had one,” said Philip, in whom fatigue had produced low spirits. “The visitor, whoever he was, not finding them, may have carried off the bear’s flesh and returned without them.”
“I think that I can convince you that my conjectures are correct,” said Mr Norman, after looking about for some time longer. “You killed the bear with long stakes: I can find none; they would naturally have carried them off as trophies. They had skates; none are to be seen, the foot-prints are those of shoes.”
“How came the hole?” asked Philip.
“They made it themselves to fish through. See here are some scales which Tom Smith has just brought me, and which his sharp eye detected near the hole: the fish was evidently thrown down there on being unhooked. Come, I doubt if any Indian would read marks more clearly than I have done, though probably he would explain matters in a far more pompous style. The fact is, my experience of bush-life and Indian life has been very considerable, as you will understand if you like some day to listen to some of my adventures. But there is nothing to keep us longer here.”
Philip was happier, but not thoroughly satisfied. The party set out on their return.