“The wind will take it up the bay,” the younger boy explained. “It may stay right side up, it may not. It may be shattered on the rocks or washed on some beach. Wherever Ohrante finds it, it will be a long way from here.”
“It will not help him to pick up our trail certainly,” Hugh exclaimed. “That was a clever thought, Blaise.”
Blaise turned to lead the way up the crack. It was black dark in the fissure. Patches of moonlit sky could be seen overhead, between the branches and spreading sprays of the cedars, but no light penetrated to the bottom. Guiding themselves by their outstretched hands, and feeling for each step, as they had done on that other night when they had entered this cleft, the two made their way up. As he thought of that other night, Hugh put his hand to his breast to feel if the precious packet was still there, attached to a piece of fish line around his neck. It was luck that the Indians had merely taken his weapons and had not searched him.
Feeling along the left wall of the gap, Blaise found the slit that led into the pit where the furs had been concealed, but he did not squeeze through. He led on up the wider rift. Where the walls were less sheer and trees grew on the gully bottom, pushing through in the darkness became increasingly difficult. When the brothers had come that way in daylight, they had found it troublesome enough. Now exposed roots and undergrowth snared Hugh’s toes, rocks and tree trunks bruised his shoulders, prickly evergreen branches scratched his face and caught his clothes. These were small troubles, however, not to be heeded by a fugitive flying from such a cruel fate as Ohrante had in mind for him. The boy’s only desire was to put as great a distance as possible between himself and the giant Mohawk. Indeed he had to hold himself in restraint to keep from panic flight.
After a few hundred feet of stumbling, groping progress, the two came to the broken birch, ghostly in the moonlight which shone down into the open space where the guide tree stood. They paused for a moment. On either hand and ahead the growth was thick.
“Which way now?” Hugh whispered the words as if he still feared an enemy lurking near.
“Straight ahead to the top of the high ridge. It will be difficult. I know not if we can do it in the darkness.”
“We must do it,” said Hugh emphatically.
Blaise nodded. “We will try,” he agreed.
The ground was low here, protected from the lake by the rock ridge with its rifts and cracks. A few steps beyond the little birch, the lads found themselves in a veritable tangle of growth, through which but little light penetrated from the sky. They struggled forward among close standing, moss-draped, half dead evergreens and old rotten birches, their feet sinking deep into the soft leaf mould and decayed wood that formed the soil. Where fallen trees had made an opening that let in a little light, thickets of bushes and tangles of ground yew had grown up, more difficult to penetrate than the black woods. Compelled to make their way, for the most part, by feeling instead of sight, they could go but slowly. Hugh soon lost all sense of direction, and he wondered whether Blaise knew where he was going.
Rising ground and a thinning of the woods reassured the white boy. They must be going up the ridges, not back towards the Indian camp. He marvelled that Blaise had managed to find the way. Blaise was far from infallible though, and there soon came a time when he did not think it wise to go farther. They had climbed a steeper slope, treading firmer soil and outcroppings of rock, but still in thick woods, and had reached a small rock opening overgrown with moss and low plants. The sweet perfume of the carpet of twin flowers he could not see came to Hugh’s nostrils. Blaise stopped and peered about him. Clouds must have covered the moon, for the open space was very dark.
“We had best wait here,” he said after a few moments. “If the moon shines again, or after dawn comes, I will climb a tree and see where we are.”
“Don’t you know where you are?” Hugh asked.
“I am not certain. How can I be certain in the darkness, when I have never come this way before? I think our way lies over there.” He pointed across the opening. “We are on the top of a low ridge, but if we go down where the trees stand thick, we may lose our way and much time also. We are well hidden here. When Ohrante wakes, he will not know which way to seek. It will be long before he finds our trail.”
“I hate to stop as long as we can go on.”
“I too, my brother, but I think we shall gain time, not lose it if we wait for light.”
Far from the Indian camp and well hidden, the brothers could risk conversation. Instinctively they kept their voices low. Hugh was curious to learn how Blaise had crossed from the pond in the small island to the long point, and Blaise equally eager to hear how Hugh had fallen into Ohrante’s hands. Seated on moss patches in the rock opening, they satisfied each other’s curiosity on those points. Then Blaise went on to tell how he had tracked his elder brother. When he had smelled smoke he had known he must be near a camp.
“I heard the rippling of water,” the boy said in his soft singsong. “Then I caught the sound of men’s voices. I left the trail and crept towards the water. I peeped through the alders and saw the lake and the beach. Canoes lay on the pebbles, but no man was in sight. I wished to find out if you were in the camp. So I went back into the woods and crawled towards the voices. I crept from tree to tree and bush to bush, and found myself behind a wigwam. I lay flat and tried to peep around it, but a clump of willows was in the way, and I could see nothing. I crawled like a snake for the willows. I looked through them and saw you, my brother, bound to the birch. My heart gave a leap when I saw you unharmed and knew there was yet time to steal you away. I saw Ohrante too. He sat by the fire and ate. He turned his head, and I feared his sharp eyes might find me through the willows, so I crept away. I went back into the woods and hid not far from the trail. The Iroquois I had seen on the trail returned. Crawling nearer the camp again, I heard him talk to Ohrante, but I could not understand, for he spoke the Iroquois language. I saw no way to get you away before nightfall, and I feared they might carry you off somewhere in a canoe where I could not follow.
“Back to the beach I went and hid myself in the alders near the big canoes. I saw Ohrante and six others go away. By their moccasins I knew that two were Iroquois, the others Ojibwas and Crees. A small canoe was left on the beach. When Ohrante had been gone a while, I heard voices, and two more men came along the shore from the camp. One carried a net of cedar cord. He had an ugly face and a red band around his head. The other, a short, strong man, I knew at once. He is Monga, an Ojibwa, one of the two who helped Ohrante to escape. The two sat down on the sand just below where I was hidden, and I crawled nearer to listen to what they said as they mended their net. They spoke Ojibwa. Red Band has not been with Ohrante long. He asked what the chief would do with the white captive. Monga,—his name means theloon,—answered that Ohrante would take the white man to the mainland, to the Isle of Torture, but they could not start to-day because the wind was too strong and the lake too rough. Red Band was not pleased. He said he wished the chief would let the white men alone until his people were stronger. Monga said that Ohrante hated all white men. When the trader Beaupré escaped his vengeance——”
“What?” interrupted Hugh. “He said ‘the trader Beaupré’?”
“Yes. When the trader Beaupré escaped Ohrante’s vengeance, the chief swore to kill every white man who fell into his hands.”
“But what did he mean by father’s escaping Ohrante’s vengeance?”
“It was as we thought,” Blaise replied, his voice low and tense. “It was Ohrante who brought our father to his death. Red Band said it was true that Beaupré escaped, but in his escape he received his death wound.”
“That explains what we found at the Devil Track River.”
“Yes. From what they said it seems that our father and Black Thunder both fell into Ohrante’s hands. In some way they escaped, but they were overtaken at the River of Devil Tracks. They fought and our father got away again, but sorely wounded. That is the way I put together the things I heard the two men say.”
“How comes it then that the bateau and furs are here on Isle Royale? Did Ohrante bring them here?”
“I think Ohrante knows nothing of the furs. When we first saw him here I thought he had come to Minong to seek the furs, but no, this is not the first time he has been here. His braves call him ‘Chief of Minong.’ I think he fled here, he and Monga and the other man who helped him, when he escaped from our father and the Ojibwas. I know not when the rest of the band joined him, but I believe Ohrante and those two were living somewhere on this island when white men and red sought them and could not find them. This I know, here on Minong Ohrante captured our father and Black Thunder. Monga said it was strange that two white men had been found here, where no man was believed to come. Both Jean Beaupré and the new white captive pretended to be only traders, he said, and told tales of how they were driven here by storm and wrecked on the rocks. The chief believed Beaupré’s story, but now that this other white man came with the same tale, Ohrante began to doubt. He thought perhaps they came to spy on him.”
“I feared Ohrante did not believe me,” Hugh confessed, “but it made little difference what story I told. He says he hates all white men and intends to destroy them and drive them out of this country. He thinks he is destined to be some sort of king over this part of the world. Did those two say more of father?”
“No, their net was finished and they went out in the little canoe. At once I sought you, my brother, but I dared not cut your bonds. The two were only a little way out in the bay. Later I listened to them talk again. I could not get the meaning of all they said, but I think Ohrante intends to hold a council on that island where he tortures his prisoners. I am sure that others are to meet him there to join his band.”
“And he was reserving me to be put to death by torture as a sort of entertainment for his new adherents, I suppose,” Hugh muttered grimly. “That is not the part in the performance I should choose to play. Perhaps I can find some other part more to my liking.” A daring suggestion had come into his mind as Blaise told of the council on the “Island of Torture.” “Did you learn when the meeting was to be?” Hugh asked abruptly.
“It is to be soon, I think. They wait only for safe weather to make the crossing.”
Hugh was silent in frowning thought. When he spoke, it was not of the council. “It is plain to see what happened,” he said musingly. “The storm bore father and his comrade here to this island. Their boat was driven into that crack in the rocks and wrecked. Ohrante came upon them, took them captive and carried them to the mainland. Father must have had some warning, though, for he hid the pelts and the packet. I wonder, Blaise, if, when he was first wrecked, he put the furs up on that rock shelf to keep them dry and safe. Then, afterwards, when he learned Ohrante was near, he moved the bales to a more secret spot farther from the wreck.”
Blaise nodded. “It may be,” was all he said.
“We were right all the time,” Hugh added, “in believing that Ohrante had something to do with father’s death.”
“I felt in my heart that Ohrante was the guilty one,” the younger lad replied simply.
“Yet of course it may not have been Ohrante himself who gave father his death blow,” Hugh mused.
Blaise waved away his brother’s reasoning with a gesture. “It matters not whether Ohrante himself or one of his men struck the blow. It is not the knife that we punish when a murder is committed, but the man who wields the knife. Ohrante is that man. It was he who captured our father, who would have put him to the torture, who caused his death.”
“And Ohrante shall pay for it,” Hugh broke in passionately. “He shall pay soon if we can but reach the mainland in time. The sky is lighter, Blaise,” he added, looking up above the surrounding tree tops. “We must be moving.”
Looking around for a tall tree, Blaise found a tapering spruce, growing in a pocket of deeper soil and towering above its fellows. The stubs of the lower branches, that, deprived of light by adjacent trees, had died and fallen off, formed a ladder, up which he climbed, Hugh not far behind. Reaching the live limbs, they pushed their way among the thick masses of dark green needles. The smaller lad went on until the slender spire bent threateningly under his weight.
The moon had come out from behind the clouds, and the paling sky foretold the dawn. From his perch above the surrounding trees, Blaise could see the water, and, across it, the narrow black line of the low point. On the other side, directly below him, he could make out from the growth that the ground dipped down. Beyond the slight dip, the rising ranks of trees betrayed the steepness of the ascent. A little to his right and far up, his keen eyes detected a bare stretch of rock between the masses of foliage above and below. He took a long look in every direction, then started to climb down.
Hugh, learning from the movement of the branches above him that Blaise was descending, also moved farther down. There, resting on a stout limb, he waited for his brother.
“What did you make out?” he asked eagerly. “I could see that we are part way up the ridges. Have we kept a straight course?”
“Yes, we have come straighter than I feared, but we are scarce more than half-way up, and we must go farther to the left. You remember that bare cliff?”
“The wall, like a fortification, that we saw from across the bay?”
“The same. We cannot climb that place. We must go to the left to avoid it. Come, we must make haste.”
Darkness still lay deep in the woods, as the two plunged down the short slope into a narrow and shallow gully. Through the thicker growth at the bottom, they threaded their way to the left a hundred yards or more, then began to ascend again. The rapidly rising ground, interrupted by shallow depressions only, served as a guide. Where the slope was regular and not too steep and there was soil enough to anchor them, trees grew thick, but abrupt bare places, masses of tumbled rocks and almost vertical walls made up much of the way. The northwestern side of the long point was far more abrupt than the southeastern, but the increasing light made it possible for the boys to choose their path. They were no longer compelled to proceed by sense of feeling only. Sound of wind, active of limb, and goaded on by the signs of breaking day, they climbed swiftly and without pause.
Crossing a narrow shelf of broken rock débris, that had crumbled into soil deep enough to bear trees, they came to the last rise. By going farther to the left, they had thought to avoid the bare, pillared, rock ramparts, and had indeed escaped the steepest and highest stretch. Nevertheless the cliff before them was almost vertical, and clothed with only an occasional sturdy, dwarfed mass of cedar or trailing juniper, a little seedling tree, stunted bush or tiny plant, growing in crevice or hollow, and the ever present, tight clinging moss and lichens. Had the ancient rock not been ribbed and blocked and weathered, it would have been unclimbable. The splitting off of blocks and scaling away of flakes, which had crumbled into débris at the foot of the cliff, had left shelves and crannies affording some foothold and finger-hold to the active climber.
It was a bad place to go up but not an impossible one. The fugitives paused only long enough to select what appeared to be a possible route up a sort of flue, caused by the falling out of one of the pillars. Blaise went first, and Hugh would have followed close behind, had not the half-breed boy bade him, somewhat sharply, wait below. If Blaise lost his hold and slipped back, it would not advantage him any to take his elder brother down with him. The lad was nearing the top when he let his weight rest too heavily on an insecure ledge. The rock flaked off, and he was left hanging, one hand thrust into a crack, the other clinging to a cedar stem. Down below, Hugh held his breath in suspense. For the interval of an instant, while the agile climber drew up his left foot and thrust his toes into a cranny, the cedar held. Then its roots pulled loose. But Blaise managed to keep his balance, and quickly hooked his strong fingers around the rim of the hole where the cedar clump had been growing. In a few moments he was over the top, and it was Hugh’s turn to make the ascent.
The scaling away of the piece of rock that had formed the narrow ledge made it necessary for Hugh to take a slightly different route up the flue. He was heavier than Blaise and for him the climb was even more perilous. Profiting by his younger brother’s experience, Hugh trusted to crannies and cracks into which he could thrust his fingers and toes, rather than to the more treacherous projections. Climbing cautiously, he reached the summit without accident.
The growth on the ridge top prevented the boys from seeing to the east, but the sky was now so light they knew sunrise could not be far away. Hurrying across the summit, they came out upon the southeastern slope. From there they could see the rose pink flush of day.
The southeastern side of the high ridge was far less abrupt than the northwestern. Except for occasional open rock stretches, it was, however, thickly forested. In spite of the rough going, the fugitives made good speed on the down grade. Nimbly the light-footed Blaise threaded his way among trees and undergrowth, and sprang down the open slopes. Hugh, to whose feet the very thought of the cruel Iroquois seemed to give wings, kept close behind. In a shorter time than they would have believed possible, they were at the edge of the water.
Blaise glanced towards the woods across the channel. “That is not the island where the little lake is,” he said. “We are too far down. The bateau is over that way.” Without waiting for Hugh to reply, the lad turned to the right and began to make his way along shore.
A moment later, Hugh, following closely, said anxiously, “We are leaving a plain trail here. The ground is damp and there is much undergrowth.”
“We cannot help that. If we must leave a trail, we will use it to lead our enemies astray, Step as lightly as you can, and in a little while I will show you a trick.” Hugh had been possessed with the fear that some of Ohrante’s men might have discovered the boat and taken it away. He was greatly relieved to find it tied to the overhanging tree where he had left it.
“Take the bateau,” the younger boy ordered, “and paddle down to the place where we came out of the woods. I will join you there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Lead our enemies astray. If they find my tracks near their camp and follow them, they may also find the trail down to this place. They must not think that we crossed the water from here. I shall make tracks, plain tracks, from here down towards the mouth of the bay, beyond the place where you and I came out of the woods a little while ago.”
“But in our old trail from here to the ridge top the footprints point up, not down.”
“Yes, and we have not time to go back and make new. I hope they will think we travelled both ways on that trail. I will go back a little way and make a few prints leading down.”
While Hugh was untying and pushing off the bateau, Blaise, going carefully and lightly, followed for a little way the route he had taken when he went in search of his white brother. Then, turning, he came back, leaving here and there clear impressions to show direction. Twenty or thirty feet from the shore, he branched off to the left, making tracks leading to the alongshore trail, but avoiding the spot where the bateau lay. He then went on towards the mouth of the bay, carefully obliterating all toe marks that pointed up the channel, and making sure to leave some pointing down.
In the meantime Hugh had pushed off the bateau. He noticed that the boat had left no clear traces, except where the rope had rubbed the bark from the limb around which it had been tied. That scar might easily have been made by the claws of some animal climbing out over the water. To make such an origin seem more likely, he scratched the scar lengthwise several times with his thumb nail. As he paddled along close to shore, he came upon the tree Blaise had crossed on, and pushed it out into mid channel.
About a hundred feet below the place where they had come out of the woods, Hugh joined Blaise. Here they took pains to leave distinct signs that a boat had been pulled up on shore. They wished their pursuers to see that they had taken to the water at this spot. Their intention was to lead Ohrante, should he find their trail, away from the island where the furs were hidden.
“Wouldn’t it be possible, Blaise,” Hugh questioned, “to load the furs and start across the lake at once? If the wind is right, I am willing to risk Ohrante’s seeing us and giving chase. With a good breeze we can outdistance his canoes.”
Blaise shook his head. “We could not run away from him in this wind. Last night it was nearly northeast, but now it is northwest. Surely you noticed that when we were on the ridge top. We cannot make speed with this heavy bateau against the wind. Yet it is not too strong for canoes to go against it, if the men at the paddles have skill. No, we must wait till the wind changes or till darkness comes again. Now we will carry our false trail farther.”
Blaise steered the boat straight across the channel to the outer end of the opposite island. Between steep, high, bare masses of detached rock and the small island itself, a reef extended, the inner end rising out of the water to form a beach of boulders and pebbles. The boys ran the bateau on the pebbles and jumped out. They could see off across the open water to the east, where the sun was already above the horizon.
“Here,” said Blaise, “we will leave the ashes of a fire, as if we had stopped to cook a meal. Make haste and get wood.”
Hugh did not need to be warned to make haste. A small fire was soon kindled on the pebbles where it could not spread, then partly stamped out and left smouldering. As the boys embarked again, Hugh glanced back to satisfy himself that the wind was not carrying any sparks towards the woods. Heretofore he had always drenched his cooking fire before leaving camp, but to have poured water on this one would have defeated his younger brother’s purpose. Blaise wanted the recent kindling of the fire to be in plain evidence.
“Where we have gone from here our enemies cannot tell,” he explained. “They will find no tracks or signs on this little island except around the fire. Then they will be sure we have gone by boat, but which way they will not know.”
“Which way shall we go?” Hugh questioned.
“Back to our camp in the little inland lake, but not down the channel next the point. We will steer around these big rocks and up the other side of this island.”
The two paddled the bateau around the rocks and up along the southeastern side of the small island. High in the center and heavily wooded, it hid them completely. Their route led them into the open end of the narrow strait that cut into the other island where the furs were hidden. They passed the gap with its two tiny islets, where heretofore they had gone in and out, and were soon back in the little pond.
“I don’t know whether we are wise to stay here,” Hugh said thoughtfully, as they drew the boat up on the narrow beach. “We have tried to confuse our trail, yet if Ohrante tracks us across the high ridge and down to the water, he will surely search all these islands. This is almost too perfect a hiding place. If those Indians are familiar with this ‘Bay of Spirits’ they will think of this place at once. Then we shall be caught like rats in a trap.”
“You are right to call this the ‘Bay of Spirits,’” Blaise replied. “By that name Monga and Red Band spoke of it. But I think they have never been here but that one time. From what they said I think they have always made their camps on the part of Minong that lies the other side of the high ridge. And now both Monga and Red Band have great fear of this bay.”
Hugh chuckled. “So has the mighty chief Ohrante. I saw his fear in his face when I spoke of hearing strange noises. I am wondering, though, if he should track us here, if he will not suspect a trick.”
“Something more than the voices has frightened them,” Blaise went on. “The second time I listened to those two, Monga told Red Band of huge giants at the end of the point.”
“Giants? Did he mean those pillars of rock?”
“No, the giants were alive and moved.”
“Some old superstition, Blaise.”
“Monga said he saw the giants, Hugh, he and others of the band.”
“We spent nearly a day on that point and we saw no giants. If Monga saw anything there it must have been you and me. I don’t understand how those fellows in that canoe could have missed seeing us. Blaise,”—a sudden light of understanding dawned in Hugh’s face,—“Blaise, do you remember how hot and still it was, and how the haze shimmered on the water? And do you recall the day we crossed to the Isle Royale, the very same sort of day? We saw the mirage, high mountains towering up where later we found there were no real mountains. Do you remember too when we left the Bay of the Beaver, how we saw coming towards us through the morning mist, what we thought was a ship, so tall it looked, but when it drew nearer it shrank to a mere sailboat?”
“I remember those things.” Blaise was staring at Hugh’s excited face.
“Don’t you understand then? Don’t you see how it was that Monga and those others in that canoe saw giants on the end of the point? On that hot, still day, as they came across the water and looked through the shimmer of the heat haze, they saw us there on the open rocks. We ourselves saw that island far out greater than it really was and distorted. Do you remember how it shrank afterwards? To those men in that canoe we too were distorted and loomed up huge and tall like giants. That was what frightened them. That explains their hasty flight. We were the giants on the end of the point!”
Blaise was still staring, but his look of puzzlement had given way to one almost of awe. “It may be as you say,” he replied slowly. “Monga thought it was Kepoochikan and Nanibozho. I cannot understand it at all, that enchantment you call mirage that makes men see mountains that are not there and turns bateaus into ships and men into giants.”
“I don’t understand it either,” Hugh admitted, “and neither did the captain of theAthabasca. He said it was just one of the secrets of nature that we don’t understand yet. Surely the mirage is nothing to fear. It has stood us in good stead by frightening away Ohrante’s men and causing them to stand in terror of this bay. No wonder we scared them away with the echoes. They must have been frightened when they came in here. If only their fear is strong enough to keep them away now, we are safe. But we dare not trust too much to that. We must hide ourselves as well as we can. The entrance to this little lake is narrow and I think I see a way to block it so it will look as if no boat could have gone through. First, though, let us eat something if there is anything left.”
“There is a little corn, if no animal has stolen it,” Blaise replied. “I too am sore hungry, for I have eaten nothing but a few green bearberries since I set out in search of you.”
The corn, in its bark wrapping, was found untouched, hanging from the birch where Blaise had left it. Not daring to kindle a fire for fear the smoke might betray them, Hugh put the dry, hulled kernels in the kettle with cold water to soften them. Then he spoke again of his plan to block the entrance to the pond.
“That cedar that leans far down over the water,” he explained, “looks as if it was almost ready to fall of its own weight. If we could pull or push it down, it would go clear across that narrow channel.”
“But then we could not take our bateau through.”
“Oh, we can easily chop out a section when we are ready to go.”
“If anyone is near he will hear the sound of the axe.”
“It is better to risk that, Blaise, than to leave the entrance open. We will go look at the tree and see what we can do.”
The leaning, top-heavy cedar had tipped so far that several of its roots had pulled loose from their anchorage, bringing with them a section of the shallow soil and exposing the rock below. On one side the roots still held, supplying enough nourishment to the limbs to keep part of them alive. Some of the thick sprays of foliage were brown and dead, but many were still green and flourishing. The tree certainly looked as if the slightest additional strain would tip it the rest of the way. Before testing it, the boys noted where it would fall. It stood a few feet above the water and slanted out at an angle across the passageway.
“It will not catch in any tree when it goes down,” Hugh observed. “Fresh breaks in other trees or bushes would betray how recently it had fallen. Of course the fact that it is partly green will prove it hasn’t been down very long.”
“An uprooted tree lying in the water will stay green for many days,” Blaise replied.
“I think we had better try to push it over,” Hugh decided. “To make a way out to-night we shall not need to chop through the trunk. This end will be high enough from the water so, by cutting off a few of the lower limbs, we can take the boat underneath.”
“If the water is deep enough at this side,” added Blaise.
First attempts to bring down the slanting tree failed, however. It was not so insecure as it appeared. The tough roots that still held were stronger anchors than the boys had suspected. Pushing and pulling with all their might had little effect.
“We must cut away some of the roots that are holding,” Hugh said at last. “Lend me your hatchet, Blaise. Ohrante has mine.”
The roots were tough, but the little axe was sharp and Hugh’s blows vigorous. He cut every root he could reach, and the tree trembled, swayed and tipped, pulling up more rootlets and chunks of soil.
“It will come now. It needs just a little more weight. Here, Blaise.”
Hugh returned the hatchet, jumped upon the leaning trunk and made his way along it. The tree swayed with the added weight. As he went farther up and out, the strain on the few roots was too great. With a rending sound they tore up the shallow soil, and the cedar crashed down across the channel.
Hugh had expected the tree to go suddenly, and he kept a firm hold, but he was jarred and drenched in the splash. The trunk, where he was clinging, did not go under water, and he scrambled quickly back to shore. All the roots were in the air now, and the tree slanted down from the butt, instead of up. The crown rested in the shallow water and against the opposite shore. The entrance to the little pond was both well closed and effectually concealed.
Hugh uttered a little exclamation of satisfaction. “It must look from out there,” he said, nodding towards the water beyond, “like a perfectly natural accident. This old cedar is the best of screens. I don’t believe anyone coming around that little island and seeing this fallen tree would guess there was a lake or bay in here. Of course if he came so close he could peep through the branches, he might be able to see water beyond, but he would never guess that a boat could go in. If anyone came up here, though, he would see the freshly upturned earth and the cut ends of the tree roots. But the bushes hide this spot from the water and there is nothing to bring anyone ashore here. We shall be better hidden than we could have hoped.”
“Yes, it was a good thought, my brother. We will go back now and bring the bateau around to this side of the little lake. Then if anyone looks through the branches and sees the water beyond, he cannot see the bateau or us. If he tries to cut a way through, we shall hear him and be warned. The sun climbs high. We must make haste.”
Without pausing to reply, Hugh led off at once, back to the beach and around to the spot where the boat lay. Quickly and carefully, the brothers erased all signs of their camp that might be seen from across the pond. Hugh gathered up the remains of the fire and was about to throw them into the water, when Blaise stopped him. The charred sticks might float across, and betray that someone had camped there. So Hugh carried the blackened bits back into the woods, and then washed every trace of ashes from the pebbles and sand. The mast and sail, which had been left on shore, were laid in the boat, and the lads paddled around to a spot less than a hundred feet from the end of the blockaded passageway. With the poplar rollers they had used before, they drew the bateau up on shore, where it could not be seen by anyone peeping through the barrier.
The sun would soon be directly overhead. Ohrante had had several hours to find Hugh’s trail. The boy did not believe that the Iroquois would let him escape without some effort to trace and recapture him. Even now the Chief of Minong or some of his followers might be near at hand. It would be wise to lie low and keep very quiet, restricting conversation to necessary whispers. After chewing, as well as he could, some of the partly softened corn, Hugh stretched himself out on the narrow beach to let the sun dry his clothes.
Waiting quietly for Ohrante to come and find him proved nerve wracking. After what seemed a long period of inaction, he raised himself on his elbow and hitched nearer his younger brother. The latter was sitting close to the bateau, his eyes closed, apparently asleep.
“Blaise, I’m going up through the woods to find some spot where I can see out. Then if anyone comes near our barrier I shall know it.”
The half-breed boy had opened his eyes at the first word. “We must take great care,” he replied in the softest of whispers. “The cracking of a twig, the moving of a bush may betray us. Yet I am ready to take the risk if you are.”
“We’ll both go then, and we’ll not take more risk than we can help.”
Blaise nodded and rose. Slipping into the woods just beyond where the boat lay, he threaded his way among trees and bushes. Hugh followed quite as cautiously. It was but a short distance, and after a few steps Blaise dropped to his hands and knees. Hugh followed his example, and remained motionless while the other crept ahead and disappeared behind a clump of balsams.
The older boy waited several minutes, then ventured forward. Beyond the balsams he paused, but could catch no glimpse of Blaise among the dense growth. The sunlight between the trees ahead showed him that he must be close to the margin of the woods. Lying almost flat, he wriggled along until he could see a patch of water. For a moment he lay still, looking and listening. Then he crept forward again and took his station behind a thick mass of cedar needles. In its youth this cedar had been bent almost double by some weight, a fallen tree probably, and had grown in that misshapen form, branching and leafing out in dense sprays clear to the ground. Peeping around the green screen, Hugh found he was but a few feet from the edge of the water. The sheltered bay was without a ripple, the sun hot, the woods still, the silence unbroken by even the twitter of a bird or the hum of an insect.
The boy was about to raise himself for a better view, when, from the water, a sound came to his ears. The very slightest of sounds it was, but he lowered his head instantly. He wriggled a little farther back behind the cedar masses and lay motionless. The sound came again, the slightest suggestion of rippling water. But the bay was smooth and still. What he heard was the dipping of a paddle blade, the ripple of water against the side of a boat.
For a few moments Hugh dared not try to look. Then curiosity got the better of fear. Raising his head ever so little, he found a peep-hole between the cedar sprays and put his eye to it. He could see a bit of the round, wooded islet, a section of the shore opposite and, on the water between, a birch canoe. It held three men. The bow-man was the tall young Iroquois who had first taken Hugh prisoner. The man in the middle wore a red band about his long black hair. As the canoe came nearer, Hugh could see that the steersman was the squat Ojibwa from whose custody he had escaped. Ohrante had not killed the guard then, but no doubt some heavy punishment hung over Monga’s head if he did not find Hugh and bring him back. He was desperate enough to dare return to the dreaded Bay of Manitos.
The canoe came slowly, the man in the bow watching the water. It was shallow between the round islet and the blocked entrance to the little pond. Would the fallen cedar deceive the Indians or not? Hugh held his breath.
The bow-man straightened a little, glanced towards the cedar, then looked back at the water again. Red Band’s eyes were on his paddle. Monga’s head turned from side to side, as he scanned the shore and the woods for any sign that the fugitive had been there. His glance swept the barrier. He twisted his paddle. The canoe swerved nearer to the blocked passage.
The man in the bow uttered a sharp hiss of warning. For an instant Hugh feared that the fellow had caught sight of him through the leafy screen. But the warning was of shallows ahead. The steersman dipped his paddle and swerved the canoe again, this time away from the fallen cedar. He did not cast another glance in that direction, as the canoe came on past the barrier. The “tide,” as Hugh had called it, was out. The water was at its lowest point of fluctuation. No one could suspect a navigable channel where the uprooted tree lay.
It was plain that the Indians intended to round the little islet. To do so they must pass close to the shore where Hugh was. He lowered his head cautiously and lay prone and motionless. He could hear the gentle ripple of the water as the canoe slipped through it. Then a harsh voice spoke. So close it seemed that the lad almost jumped, and a shudder of fear passed through him. In an instant he realized that the voice was Monga’s and that it came from the water, not from the land. The tall fellow answered briefly, and Monga grunted an abrupt rejoinder. What they said Hugh could not guess, for they spoke in Ojibwa.
The slight sounds of dipping paddles and rippling water grew fainter and fainter, then ceased. Hugh drew a long breath, raised his head a little and looked through the peep-hole. The canoe was no longer in sight. It could not be far away, though, so he lay still. He was just wondering whether it would be safe now to try for another and wider view of the bay and strait, and had raised his head to reconnoiter, when he caught sight of a crouching figure slipping swiftly between the trees towards him. For an instant his heart seemed to stop beating, then he saw that it was Blaise approaching.
The younger brother dropped down beside the elder. “They are gone,” he whispered. “Let us go back.”
The canoe had gone by, but the boys did not abate their caution and watchfulness one whit, as they made their way back to the shore of the pond.
“That danger seems to be over,” Hugh remarked, his voice still lowered to a whisper, as he came out of the woods near the boat. “Blaise, could you understand what those two said? Were you near enough to hear?”
“I was but a little way beyond you, my brother. I heard every word. There is bad blood between Monga and the young Iroquois. It was the Iroquois who wished to come up this way. They found the ashes of our fire at the end of that island out there. Monga thinks we went on across the mouth of this long bay. He wished to seek us in that direction, but when the Iroquois found the passage between these islands, he forced Monga to come up here first. He is sure now that we are not in here. So they go the way Monga wishes.”
“Then we are safe from those three for some hours at least, but I wish we knew where Ohrante and the others are.”
“Ohrante must hold Monga, and perhaps the Iroquois, to blame for your escape. If they take you not back, it will go hard with them. It may be that Ohrante has sent them to seek you and himself waits at the camp, or he may search in the other direction. Perhaps he will not come into this Bay of Manitos at all.”
“Very likely he is glad of an excuse to stay out,” returned Hugh with a grin. “Ohrante may be brave as a lion with other men, but I think he is not quite so bold with spirits.”
“No man is,” Blaise replied simply. “I am not sure that Ohrante is very brave. He is cruel and treacherous, but brave in the way our father was? No, I think he is not brave like that.” The lad gave one of his characteristic French shrugs.
Hugh made no answer. He discounted his brother’s opinion of Ohrante somewhat. Blaise was half Ojibwa, of the Algonquin stock, and the ancient hatred between Algonquin and Iroquois had not died out and probably never would die. The boy was naturally unwilling to admit any good qualities in the self-styled “Chief of Minong,” half Mohawk by blood and wholly so by training. But Ohrante, thought Hugh, must have some unusual qualities, since, in spite of the ancient hate, he had attracted to his band Ojibwas as well as Iroquois.
“Yet, we know not,” Blaise went on after a moment, “how near the others may be, or how soon Monga may return this way. We dare not venture out until darkness comes.”