XI NANGOTOOK RECONNOITERS

The cat-like tracks of the animal that had attacked the lads were plainly marked in the rain-softened earth and leaf mould. They were the prints of a lynx of unusual size. It was lucky for Ronald that he had slept in his heavy coat, or the beast’s claws might have injured him seriously. As it was, they had torn through his clothes, and had inflicted a shallow but painful scratch on his breast.

The boys cut more fuel and broiled their fish for breakfast. They were just finishing the meal, when the bushes parted suddenly and Nangotook stood before them.

Jean rose to his feet. “Where have you been, Nangotook?” he exclaimed. “We were just about to follow your trail to see if any evil had overtaken you.”

“Little brother need have no fear,” Nangotook answered with more amiability than he had shown the night before. “The Ojibwa brave can take care of himself—with other men,” he added, after a moment’s pause. Perhaps he was not so sure of being able to hold his own with spirits or supernatural beings.

Knowing that he would tell them what he had been doing when he was ready to speak, and not before, the lads forbore to question him. Instead they told him of the beast that had fallen into the lodge. Nangotook examined the tracks with interest. “Big lynx,” he said. “We track him and find where he lives.”

“’Tis hardly worth while to be doing that,” objected Ronald. “His pelt is not at its best now, and anyway we’re not hunting for pelts. We must examine every yard of the shore of this island. I feel sure there’s a beach beyond the lower ground, and it may be the one we’re looking for.”

“Yes,” agreed Jean, “we must go over there at once.”

The Indian made no reply, but continued to eat his fish in silence. When he had finished, he rose to his feet. “Come,” he said briefly. “I show you tracks not made by lynx.”

He led the boys behind the wigwam and a little way through the thick woods. There he stopped and pointed to some marks in the soft ground under a spruce tree.

“A man,” Jean exclaimed, dropping on his knees to examine the prints.

“Two men,” corrected Nangotook.

“What are they? Did you follow them?” cried Ronald. “How did you come upon their trail?”

In the brief, abrupt manner in which he usually gave information when action impended, Nangotook explained that he had waked in the night with the feeling that some strange thing or person was near by. He had lain quiet, listening. From a big cedar that overhung the lodge, he had heard the faint rustle of foliage, the creaking of a limb. There was little wind, and that sixth sense, by which an Indian distinguishes sounds, told the Ojibwa that the noises were made by animal or man. Something warned him of danger. As he lay listening, his suspicions were confirmed. He heard a scraping as if some hard substance rubbed the bark of the tree. Then the branches creaked more loudly, and there came a thud as of something heavy striking the ground. But that was not all. Just as the heavy thing struck the earth, the Indian’s keen ears detected a whispered exclamation, an oath in French. That sound must have dispelled from his mind the fear, if he had felt it, that the thing in the tree might be some supernatural being. Indian manitos, spirits or fiends would not be apt to swear in French.

The full, slow breathing of the two boys indicated that they had not been disturbed. Lying perfectly still, Nangotook also breathed deeply and regularly, so that any one listening might think that all three slept soundly. He did not want the spy, whoever he was, to suspect that any one was awake and listening. The Indian heard no more rustlings or scrapings, however. There was nothing to suggest that the man approached nearer.

For a long time Nangotook lay perfectly still. Then, feeling sure that the spy had taken himself off, he rose noiselessly, cast away his blanket, and, knife in hand, stepped over Ronald and out of the lodge. It was useless to try to track the uninvited visitor in the darkness. It was the canoe the Ojibwa was anxious about. Making his way to the place where it was hidden, he found it safe and undisturbed.

On the bay, and along the edge of the woods that grew down to it, there was more light, for day was dawning. As Nangotook started to turn back towards camp, he caught sight of something floating on the water near by. He crawled out on the leaning tree trunk where he and his companions had landed two days before, reached for the thing and secured it. It was a small piece of deerskin, such as travelers usually carried for moccasin patches. It did not belong to him or to either of the boys, and it had not been in the water long, for it was scarcely wet. To the Indian it was sure proof that the night visitor had come by water. He looked for the place where the man’s canoe had come in, and soon found the spot, under a thick, overhanging tangle of trees and bushes, where he would not have noticed signs of landing had he not been searching for them.

Returning to his own hidden canoe, he put it in the water, shoved off, and paddled noiselessly along close to shore. He had not gone far, when he heard, from the direction of the camp, the sharp screech of a lynx, but he paid no heed. It was the cry of a real lynx, not a human imitation, and the thought that the two boys might be in any danger from that fierce, but, as far as man is concerned, cowardly animal, never occurred to him. He was seeking to discover whether the stranger’s canoe had come from somewhere on the bay or through the channel. The depth of the water enabled him to keep close in to the shore, which he eyed keenly in the half light of the gray, gloomy dawn. He skirted the higher land, then the low ground opposite the entrance, finding nothing to indicate that a boat had ever run in anywhere.

It was not until he had gone more than half-way around and had come to rising ground again, that he observed a suspicious looking spot. He paused to examine it, and found a landing place, with a distinct trail leading away from it. The tracks showed that two men had come and gone that way. Probably they had carried their canoe with them, for he did not find it hidden anywhere, though he sought for it. The tracks had been made since the rain, and there had been no attempt to obliterate them. Nangotook followed them across to the north shore of the island, where he had not been before.

There, among the rocks, the trail ended abruptly. He searched, but could find no more tracks. Finally he became convinced that the men must have lowered the canoe down a cleft in the rock wall to the water.

Where had they gone? He had no way of telling. The outlying rocks were wave washed, and afforded no shelter. There was no other land visible. A short distance out, the morning mists lay thick on the lake. There might be hidden land off there somewhere, or the canoe might have gone along shore, but which way or how far he could not guess. So he turned back the way he had come.

He paddled across the bay, and landed at the place near the camp where the two men had come ashore. From there they had proceeded very cautiously, and had left little trace of their passage through the woods. It was with considerable difficulty that the Ojibwa tracked them to the tall spruce. The spruce was at least a hundred and fifty feet from the hut, but the men must have climbed it and made their way, as squirrels might, from one tree to another until they reached the cedar that overhung the shelter. The thick growth made such a feat possible for active men. One of them, however, had missed his hold in the darkness, and had fallen from the cedar. A hollow in the soft leaf mould showed where he had struck the ground. It was then he had uttered the exclamation in French that had convinced Nangotook the spy was neither animal nor spirit. He had climbed the tree again, for there were no other tracks to be found, and had gone back in the same way. Perhaps only one man had made the trip from tree to tree, the other waiting for him at the tall spruce.

With intense interest and excitement the boys listened to the Ojibwa’s story. The spies might be wandering Indians who had come to the island in search of copper. It was said that many of the islands of the lake bore copper in loose pieces that could be picked up on the shores. One of the visitors, however, had uttered an oath in French.

“Can you make any guess who those men are?” Ronald asked, anxiously, when the Ojibwa had finished his tale.

Nangotook nodded gravely. “One Indian, Cree, I think,” he said, “the other Awishtoya.”

“Are you sure? How can you tell?” cried both boys.

Nangotook pointed to the tracks. “One man lame,” he said. “Walk heavier with right foot, and foot turn out. Some places, across the bay there, tracks show it plain. Following us for something. Bad man, Awishtoya.”