Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay Part 3

Ned was down beside him almost instantly.

"It's a plain footprint, all right," he announced as soon as he had been able to take a quick observation.

"That proves Francois _did_ see a skulker then, and wasn't dreaming,"

Jack was heard to say, as though he may have been entertaining some doubt on the subject up to that moment.

"He scared him off, even if his lead was thrown away," Jimmy ventured, with a slight touch of scorn in his manner, as though he fancied he could have given a better account of himself, had the chance come his way.

"Hold on, don't be in such a rushing big hurry to say he wasted his lead," Ned warned him.

"What's that, Ned; did he hit the sneak after all?" Jack demanded.

"Well, spots of fresh blood don't grow on the bushes up here, even if we do seem to run across lots of queer things," Ned went on to say, as he pointed to where they could all see that it was so.

This fact added to the excitement. If the unknown whom they looked on as some species of spy, had been wounded, it looked like a serious piece of business for the little party of explorers. He must have friends not far away, and after the gantlet of defiance had been thrown down by this shot, these men might lose all restraint and show that they were disposed to act in an ugly way.

It meant that the former sense of security and indifference was a thing of the past. From this time on the scouts must keep constantly on the alert to guard against a sudden surprise. They must learn to watch for danger in every quarter, and not allow themselves to sleep on post.

All this change was caused by the discovery of that one small spot of shed blood. Even the usually talkative Jimmy seemed to have become dumb for the time being, as though realizing the gravity of the situation.

"Do we try to track the fellow, Ned?" asked Teddy.

"I don't think that would be a wise thing to attempt," came the reply.

"In the first place we couldn't make any headway without a light; and that would expose the lot of us to his fire, if he found himself being overtaken, and was still smarting under the pain of his wound. Then again, we don't know who he may be, or what friends he may have close by. No, the best thing for us to do is to go back to our camp, and try to get a little more sleep. We'll put out the fire, and one of the guides will sit up for two hours with me. Then we'll wake another couple, and in that way pa.s.s the rest of the night."

"Sounds like business at the old stand," remarked Jimmy, "Many's the time the lot of us have done that same thing. And, Ned, I'm in hopes you'll be after lettin' me sit up with you. Never a bit of sleep is there in me eyes at this minute. I'm staring like any old hoot owl in a Virginia swamp. Don't tell me to beat it if you love me the least bit.

My lamps won't go shut, that's flat, and I might as well sit up with you as lie down, and just stare and stare."

"Oh! suit yourself, Jimmy," Ned told the urgent one; "though of course I'll be only too glad to have your company, if, only you'll remember to keep still. When we have to serve as guards to the camp it's a still tongue that counts for the most."

"I'll promise to be as dumb as an oyster, Ned," pleaded the other; and so it was settled that he could help to stand the first watch.

The balance of the expedition once more settled down. Jack crawled alone into the smaller tent, while Frank and Teddy occupied the other.

Francois and the Indian consulted with Ned, and then the fire was wholly extinguished. Tamasjo went over to sleep in one of the canoes, for if there should be any attack on the camp it was believed that it would begin in this quarter, as the frail craft might be reckoned their weakest and most vulnerable point.

Ned Nestor had often sat out a watch, and in the midst of a wilderness, too; but somehow the conditions seemed vastly different now from anything he had ever known before. In most other cases he could listen to the various well-known voices of the night--from katydids and crickets, to frogs in the marsh, night birds seeking their prey, or it might be the small animals of the forest barking or giving tongue.

Away up here in the vast Northern solitudes a dreadful silence seemed to hang upon all Nature. Insects there were none, of a species to cause a humming sound, and save for croaking of frogs some distance away the stillness remained unbroken for a long time.

The wolf pack broke loose again, doubtless hot on the track of a fleeing caribou, perhaps the unfortunate one that had been wounded by Jimmy on the preceding day when Frank knocked over the fine animal from which their late supper had come. Ned listened to the chorus, and allowed his thoughts to roam to other and more distant scenes, where he had had exciting experiences with the hungry animals himself, calculated to cause a shudder just to remember.

The time pa.s.sed slowly. Several louder bursts of wolfish tongues told when the hunting pack chanced to draw nearer the camp, but only to grow fainter again in the distance, as the chase led the animals over barrens where the caribou herd fed, and across wild cranberry bogs, such as the boys could remember seeing up in Northern New York State when camping in the Adirondacks.

When Ned reckoned that his time was up he woke Jimmy, who had long ago gone to sleep as sweetly as you please, with his head leaning against the b.u.t.t of a tree. Ned told him he might just as well crawl under the tent and get the benefit of a warm blanket; and after giving that advice called Frank and Jack out.

Teddy never so much as moved when Jimmy crept in to warm up under his woolen cover, for Teddy was a very good sleeper on any and all occasions, it seemed. Since there was no especial need of more sentries than the two, with the Indian and Francois to back them, Ned did not have the heart to arouse Teddy, even though he knew very well the other would reproach him for neglecting to do so.

There was no further alarm on that night, for which doubtless all of the boys were thankful, though Jimmy later on loudly bewailed the fact that he had been given no chance to make use of his faithful gun. Jimmy was not at all bloodthirsty, though any one hearing him talk, and not knowing his humorous nature, might be inclined to think so. But after a most venomous harangue he would very likely wink his eye drolly at the fellow scout he was addressing, and softly remark:

"But it isn't in my heart, and you know that!"

Jack declared that once during his watch he fancied he caught some sound out on the bosom of the dark river that might have been a big fish leaping, but which he was inclined to believe was made by a carelessly used paddle.

Of course there was no way of verifying this suspicion, because water unfortunately leaves no trail. Frank advanced the idea that it might have been the same spy who had been prowling around their camp.

"Suppose he had a canoe handy," he went on to suggest. "I can't imagine any living soul being away up in this country without some kind of a boat so as to get around. Now which way would he be likely to go, do you think, Ned?"

"If what Jack heard, and you didn't, was the sound of a working paddle,"

Ned told him, "I should say that the party went up the river. If moving with the current, you understand, there would be no need to swing his paddle at all, but simply let his boat float along till past our camp."

Francois, who had been listening to all this talk while cooking breakfast, nodded his head approvingly.

"Zat it so, sare," he ventured to observe. "Eef you ask me I haf to say ze same t'ing. Mebbe it was canoe, mebbe it was some seal zat come all ze way up zis rifer from zat big ocean zey call Hudson Bay, and which zey tell me ees six hundred mile from one sh.o.r.e to ze other."

"A real genuine seal, does he mean, Ned?" exclaimed Jimmy; "now I would like to set eyes on one of the glossy little chaps like those I've fed in the museum down at the Battery in little old New York."

"Made enough noise to have been a hippopotamus, if only such warm-blooded Nile amphibious animals lived in these Arctic rivers," Jack declared; "but after all it doesn't matter, only if the spy went up the stream we're better be off, because that would show his crowd would be found there, and not below."

"And I suppose that after this, while we sail on through cataracts, and along the smoother stretches we've got to keep our eyes peeled for signs of an ambuscade," Teddy observed. "Well, luckily we've got some pretty sharp-eyed fellows along with us; and then there are the experienced guides. Who cares for expenses? As long as I can poke into unknown sections where few white men have ever set foot, and Frank can write stunning letters to his paper about the strange things we run across, it doesn't matter a cookey. We'll get to our destination, and we're bound to find out all we came to see, because the scouts always do succeed."

It was in this same confident spirit that the little party embarked shortly afterwards. Not one of them felt faint-hearted as the unknown future loomed up before them. Nevertheless, could they have known just then of the astonishing experiences through which they were shortly fated to pa.s.s, possibly their pulses must have quickened under the strain.

The sun was well above the far-eastern horizon when they entered the three canoes, having carefully loaded the same with an eye to rough rapids ahead, and pushing out, trolling a Canadian boat song Francois had taught them, started on the day's voyage.

CHAPTER IV.

DOWN THE SWIFT RAPIDS.

"Sounds pretty wild ahead there!" bawled Jimmy, a couple of hours later.

He happened to be in the leading canoe at the time, along with the Cree Indian guide, Tamasjo, and also Frank Shaw. Ned and Jack paddled the second boat, and did it splendidly, too, for they had had considerable practice at this sort of thing, so that as Ned expressed it, both had "caught the hang of it." In the rear were the other two, Francois, and Teddy Green, the ambitious explorer of unknown lands.

All this time they had seen nothing in any quarter to indicate that there was a living human being in all that far-off country. Now and then they had glimpsed herds of caribou peacefully feeding where the gra.s.s grew most luxuriantly, or else like the reindeer of Lapland browsing off the Arctic moss that clung to the rocks in myriads of places, and contained the nourishment required. Birds were scarce, though in some places they had come upon countless numbers of ducks, geese and swan that seek these distant regions in summer to breed.

The others had possibly noticed that increasing murmur in the near distance, indicating the presence of a roaring cataract, even if they had not called attention to the same.

The Indian, seeing that the scouts would very likely want to hold a conference, dallied with his paddle, and Frank, who sat in the bow of the boat, followed suit. He did not altogether like the sound of that as yet unseen rough place in the river that flowed northward toward Hudson Bay; and felt that before trusting themselves in its clutch they should talk it over, getting what pointers they could from the two guides.

Accordingly the three canoes drifted along on the rather swift current, while those in them talked. From time to time the paddlers would delay their progress by well known means, so that they might not be carried on at too fast a pace, and find themselves in the surge of the rapids before their plans were fully matured.

"I bet you that one beats any we've struck yet, if sound goes for much!"

Jimmy gave as his opinion.

"No question about that," added Jack.