Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay Part 17

Presently they had reached the border of the reed bed, with Frank still leading, though the rest of the scouts pressed close on his heels.

Already was the first of the explorers commencing to separate the reeds, under the impression that he could take them straight to the spot where they had left the boats.

But Frank soon began to think he had started on the wrong tack, for he failed to make the antic.i.p.ated discovery. He stopped and looked blankly around him.

"Well, I declare!" he emitted, with a grunt. "I sure thought I knew this old place, and could take you straight to the canoes; but seems like I've got twisted around some. Things look different when you start to observe them from the back."

"Perhaps it isn't just what you think," said Ned, quietly.

"Is there anything wrong?" demanded Jack, while poor Jimmy's lower jaw fell, and he could only stand there and stare.

"The worst almost that could have happened to us," Ned replied sadly.

"The boats were here then, and have been stolen?" asked Frank breathlessly, while he as well as the other boys turned pale with apprehension, for it was a genuine calamity that faced them now.

"Look there and there, and you'll see where they rested among the reeds," Ned told them. "Yes, and here's a piece of greasy paper I remember seeing Jimmy toss overboard, when he was getting out of his boat. We've struck our one bad streak, after all, boys, I'm sorry to say. They ran on our boats, and we're left in the lurch up here, five hundred miles from anywhere!"

CHAPTER XIV.

BLINDING THE TRAIL.

For almost a full minute n.o.body said a word. Indeed, the tremendous nature of this discovery seemed to have very nearly paralyzed them, so that one and all could only stand there and stare at the places where they could tell their prized canoes had recently rested.

Jimmy was the first one to arouse himself, and it was hot anger that caused him to show so much activity.

"P'raps they haven't gone far, Ned, and if we got a hustle on we might manage to ketch up with the measly skunks. If they try to pack our boats through the woods, they'll have a time of it, let me tell you. Are we agoin' to give chase? Oh! I'm as fresh as a daisy right now. Seems like I could run for hours, if I had an idea I'd overtake the canoe thieves."

Ned shook his head.

"No use, Jimmy," he told the furious scout; "because they haven't carried our boats ash.o.r.e. If you look, you'll see where they paddled out on to the river. You remember, we hid all traces of our own pa.s.sage, yet here you can see a wide swath among the reeds, bending them back."

They saw that he spoke the truth, even Jimmy admitting the sad facts with a groan that seemed to well up from his shoes, it was so disconsolate.

"Five hundred miles--_five_ hundred of 'em! Gosh!" he was heard to tell himself, as he stood there, rubbing the side of his head, as though he felt like one in a stupor or a dream.

"And as we haven't a single boat, of course we can't pursue them,"

remarked Jack between his clinched teeth, while his eyes glittered angrily.

"Oh! what wouldn't I have given to have come on the rascals just in the act of getting away with our boats!" breathed Frank, as he shook his rifle, after the manner of a scout who has thrown discretion to the winds.

"Well, let's not whimper and cry over spilt milk, anyway," said Ned, who could always be depended on to bring the boys to their proper senses.

"That's so," echoed Jack, quick to see the importance of keeping their senses about them in this dilemma. "We've got to do _something_, that's sure, and so let's get to talking it over sensibly."

"But, what can we do?" pleaded Teddy, who was not apt to prove equal to a sudden strain like this, and must depend on others more vigorous of mind.

"Oh! before we're done considering things," promised Ned, "you'll find that we've got a choice of a whole lot of plans. I hope we're all made of sterner stuff than to throw out the white flag of surrender, just because something has gone wrong."

"Well, I should say not," declared Frank, grinding his teeth together.

"We're like the Old Guard, we can die, but never surrender."

"That's the stuff!" cried Jimmy, suddenly beginning to brighten up again, as the stunning effect of the first rude shock pa.s.sed away.

"Remember what Phil Sheridan did at Cedar Creek, when he met his army, smashed and running away? What was it he told 'em as he galloped along the road, headed for the battlefield? 'Face the other way, boys; face the other way! We'll lick 'em out of their boots! We'll get back those camps again!' All right, and it's me that says it; well get back our boats again, by hook or crook!"

"I hope you turn out to be a true prophet, Jimmy," said Ned. "That's one of the plans I spoke about. Another would be to make for the sh.o.r.e of the big bay, and try to get in touch with some vessel pa.s.sing, that might carry us to Halifax, or some other northern port, where we could send a message to Jack's father not to put a dollar into these fake mines."

"Sounds good to me," Teddy remarked, sucking it all in eagerly.

"Then there's another thing we might manage to do if the worst came,"

proceeded Ned. "Up here there are lonely trading posts run by the Hudson Bay Company, at each of which you'll find a factor in charge. If we could only run across one of these posts, I reckon, there would be some way found for getting us down to civilization inside of a month or so."

"That long?" observed Teddy.

"What would it matter, so that we didn't have to do the grand hike?"

Jimmy asked, afflicted with dizzy visions of five hundred miles of tramping over rough country, supporting themselves, meanwhile, in the most primitive fashion by shooting game, and cooking the same over fires made with flint and steel, or the bow and stick method known to scouts generally.

"Of course," added Frank, somewhat satirically, "Teddy would like to have one of those Zeppelin airships come along and give us a lift. I guess all of us would be glad if that happened; but the chances are so small, we don't want to consider 'em, do we, Ned? So here we are, facing a puzzle that's going to give us no end of trouble and work. If it was hard to get in, it's going to be a much bigger job to get out again."

"It's getting late, as it is," remarked Jack, as he looked toward the west where the sun was hovering over the horizon, and ready to take the final plunge, though, of course, it would not be dark for a long time afterwards, thanks to the length of the Northern twilight in midsummer.

"First, let's get where we can look up and down the river, princ.i.p.ally down," was Ned's advice, "though there's a mighty slim chance that we'll see anything of our stolen canoes."

This proved to be the case, for when they had found an elevated position, where it was possible to see far down the stream, there was not a thing in sight, save a mother duck teaching her little brood to swim and find food.

"No use, seems like; they've gone a long time back," said Jimmy.

"I wonder if that was what they told the fellows over at the mine, when they mentioned a trap?" observed Frank, seriously, glancing hastily around him at the same time, as though half expecting to see a dozen ugly-faced men appear from the bushes and rocks.

"Not while Tamasjo was reading the smoke signs," Ned a.s.sured him, "or he would have learned enough to tell us what to expect when we got here.

But, first of all, we ought to move off."

"You think they'll come here later on, when they learn how we got out of the old mine and headed across country--is that it, Ned?" Jack queried.

"I expect it is about like this," the patrol leader replied; "one or two men must have found our boats. For the life of me, I don't understand how it happened, except that they were paddling along on the river, and wanting to go ash.o.r.e took exactly the same notion we did--that the reeds would make a good hiding place for their craft. And, as luck would have it, they ran on our canoes."

"No signs here to tell Francois or the Cree about how long back this thing happened, I reckon?" Frank put in just then.

"That's where we get a hard knock," Ned continued, with a tinge of regret in his voice; "because, as you all know, water leaves no trace.

When men are fleeing from enemies, the first thing they think of is to get into a creek, and throw their pursuers, dogs and all, off the scent.

So, even as clever a trailer as Tamasjo couldn't tell any better than Jimmy here whether this robbery occurred an hour ago or three of the same."

"We're sure enough up against it this time, boys," Teddy affirmed.

"And have been on other occasions, remember, when things came out all right, and we won in the end." Jack reminded the doubter.