We started off rapidly, Baptiste and the three other voyageurs leading the way with the canoe on their shoulders. The paddles and a part of the load were inside, and Gummidge and I carried the rest. The women had no burdens, and could easily keep pace with us.
“Have you passed this way before?” asked Gummidge.
“Only once,” I replied, “and that was some years ago.”
“The place reminds me of the enchanted forests one reads of in old fairy tales,” said Mrs. Gummidge.
“I wish we were out of it,” exclaimed Flora. “It has a sad and depressing influence on me.”
Something in her voice made me turn and look at her, and she quickly averted her eyes.
“What’s that?” cried Gummidge, an instant later. “Don’t you see? There it lies, shining.”
I darted past him to the left of the path and at the base of a tree I picked up a hunting knife sheathed in a case of tanned buckskin. We all stopped, and Lavigne, one of the voyageurs, left the canoe to his comrades and took the weapon from my hand. He examined it with keen and grave interest.
“It is just such a knife as the men of the Northwest Company carry,” he declared.
“Yes, you are right,” assented Gummidge; and I agreed with him.