“Not exactly,” I said, looking about, “but we can’t be a great distance from Fort York—and from Griffith Hawke.”
I was sorry for the cutting words as soon as they were spoken, and I would have made a fitting apology. But just then I heard voices, and two voyageurs, in the blue capotes of the Hudson Bay Company, came out of the timber about twenty yards off. They saw us at once and ran toward us with eager shouts.
CHAPTER XI.
A COPY OF “THE TIMES.”
I was both glad and sorry for the interruption. In our forlorn condition we needed assistance badly enough, but I would have preferred to have Flora all to myself for some time longer. However, I made the best of it, and gave the voyageurs a warm greeting. They were from Fort York, and they told me that they and half a dozen more had been on a week’s hunting trip, and that they had spent the night in a sheltered spot near by. They added that when they were about starting for the fort, half an hour previously, two survivors of the wreck had straggled into their camp.
This was pleasing news, but before I could glean any further information, the rest of the party made their appearance from the timber—three more voyageurs and three of the company’s Indian hunters. And with them, to my great delight, were Captain Rudstone and Baptiste. Both walked with difficulty and were sorely bruised. It seems they had come ashore clinging to the jolly-boat—the rest of the crew were drowned—and had been cast on a sandy part of the coast. They knew nothing of the other boat or its occupants, and there was reason to believe the worst.
“I fear they are all lost,” said Captain Rudstone. “The longboat was heavily weighted and it probably capsized soon after it left the ship. We four have had a truly marvelous escape, Mr. Carew. I judge that Miss Hatherton owes her life to you.”
“We came ashore together,” I answered.