"Well, what do you know about that?" said Whitey, in dismay. "It must be the man who lives in the cabin who has taken our canoe!"
[CHAPTER XXVII]
A DANGEROUS SITUATION
It was a little more than half a mile to the mainland, although the boys had left their horses at the camp some distance further up the shore, and twilight was closing in fast, leaving little time for deliberation. Whitey put it up to Injun: "What shall we do—stay here or swim for it? It seems to me we better go back to the cabin at the other end of the lake and make this fellow give up what he has taken," said Whitey, tentatively.
Injun shook his head. "Him gone," he said, positively. "Him cow-puncher," he added, pointing to the heel-marks on the beach. The marks had undoubtedly been made by boots such as cow-men wear; no woodsman would ever think of wearing such things in the forest.
"Well," said Whitey, "I guess that means we got to swim! I'm with you whatever you decide." This would have been a most difficult and hazardous undertaking, encumbered as they were by rifles and clothes, and handicapped by the darkness.
Motioning Whitey to follow him, Injun started along the water's edge and collected several small logs, most of them half rotted and stripped of their branches, and which, by their combined strength the two boys were able to move. Then Injun went back into the woods and returned with an armful of tough, pliant vines and bound the logs together in the form of a rude raft. It was no easy job, and by the time the raft was completed, it was pitch dark.
"Not much of a boat," said Whitey, "but it beats swimming in the cold water all hollow!"
A couple of sticks, to which Injun bound some leafy branches, served as paddles, and the boys prepared to start.