Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay Part 8

"'Tis meself that believes it's smoke!" he declared, with animation.

"How about it, Jack?" demanded Teddy.

The one indicated did not keep them in suspense needlessly.

"Yes, Jimmy hit the bull's-eye that time," he remarked.

"Then it _is_ smoke?" queried Frank.

"Not only that, but I can make out what seem to be a number of small objects that must be vessels of some sort," Jack went on to say.

"The disappearing fleet!" gasped Jimmy.

"Well, they haven't skipped out of sight yet," continued Jack, chuckling as he handed the gla.s.ses over to Frank to have a try.

In turn all of them took a look, and no one found reason to differ from what Jack had ventured to declare in the beginning. They were, without question, looking then and there on the clump of boats about which there had been so much talk made. Of course, at that distance there was no way of finding out the character of the several boats, or more than guess at what they were doing, away out from the sh.o.r.e.

"Strikes me that it might be some queer sort of mirage, like that you sometimes see on the sandy desert." Teddy suggested, after he had gazed intently at the picture for a full minute through the lenses of the field-gla.s.ses.

"Oh! they have the same sort of deception at sea," declared Jack; "only sailors call it the _fata morgana_. When you're on the desert, it generally takes the form of a lovely running stream of water, which you're crazy to reach and suck up. But the shipwrecked tar always sees a vessel coming to his relief, which keeps on rushing through the water, right up over reef and everything and disappears over the island leaving him broken-hearted at the deception caused by conditions in the atmosphere."

Jack knew considerable about these things, for he had been in strange lands, even before he took to roaming around with Ned, when the latter entered the employ of the Government Secret Service.

"All you say is true enough, Jack," the patrol leader told him, "but in this case it isn't a deception. All of us can see the smoke hanging low down, that tells of steam vessels of some type out there, possibly trawlers, fishing. But we didn't enlist in this business intending to solve any riddles connected with Hudson Bay. I've been told that there is no place in Northern lat.i.tudes where so many strange stories have originated, as this same big sheet of salt water. Four-fifths of it have never been fully explored, so that they do not yet know what may be here."

Jimmy had been silent while all this talk was going on. But it could be readily believed that his restless mind was not inactive. He proved this by suddenly nodding his head, and looking up at Ned in that shrewd way he had of doing, whenever a particularly brilliant idea appealed to him.

"Chances are they're a blooming bad lot, that's what," he went on to say, as if he meant every word of it. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they turned out to be b.l.o.o.d.y pirates after all."

"Oh! perhaps Captain Kidd and his men come back to life again, eh, Jimmy?" suggested Teddy, with a laugh.

Jimmy turned and gave the speaker a scornful look.

"Think you're smart to get that off on me, don't you, Teddy?" he remarked; "but how're you goin' to prove that it ain't even as bad as that? Don't they say this here fleet comes and goes like ghosts of the past? Mebbe they are the spirits of Kidd, Blackbeard, Morgan, Lafitte, and all that gay crowd of buccaneers that flourished in the early days of our country. Supposin' I said I believed that way, it'd be up to you to prove me wrong, wouldn't it? Let's see you do it. Call 'em up on the wireless limited or the telephone and interview the commodore. Bah!

don't be so quick to poke fun at everybody that's got an idea you happen to think stretched. I'll even say that I've got half a sneakin' notion that it might be old Kidd himself, come back to see how the pickings are these fine days."

When Jimmy showed this fighting disposition the others were generally careful not to knock the chip off his shoulder. He had acquired habits when living on the Bowery long ago as a bootblack that could not be easily shaken off; though any one formerly acquainted with Jimmy would never have recognized him nowadays.

"It would be worth coming all the way up here if we could run across something like that, wouldn't it now?" remarked Jack, trying to look sober. "Think of how we could take the breath away from the rest of the troop at home, when we told them of meeting up with a lot of those old huskies, we've all read about in history. Jimmy's been devouring one of Clark Russell's stories, '_The Frozen Pirate_,' while on the train coming through Canada, and that's what makes him think of that crowd.

But as we haven't any boats, and the smoke keeps on hanging miles away, likely enough we won't get any chance to know what kind of men are aboard those vessels out yonder."

"Besides," put in Ned, "we mustn't forget that we've got some serious business on hand of a different character from looking up pirates. Land sharks are enough for me to tackle just now. I'm wondering whether we'll be lucky enough to find where this mine is located near here. Once we get on the track of that and things are likely to warm up a bit."

"Then I reckon we'll just have to comb the whole country roundabout, so as to learn what's what," suggested Jack, always a hard one to give up anything on which he had set his mind.

"The sooner we begin that job the better," added Frank, anxious to be doing something that would count.

That was the way with these energetic fellows. Whenever they had a charge committed to their care, they were eager to get it moving. Ned often had to hold them in check, for fear lest they show too much ambition.

He looked around in the endeavor to decide which direction they had better choose, in order to seek traces of the working which was marked on the map so plainly. It was given such prominence that one might easily believe he would find all manner of shafts, sunk, with machinery throbbing busily, and scores of brawny miners hard at work, bringing out the rich deposit of copper ore.

Ned, however, did not deceive himself into such a belief. He had had some little experience with stories of this type, and knew the vast difference between the reality and the wonderful things prospective sellers were apt to mark upon the maps they had prepared. These usually described things as they might appear in case all went well, and the mine turned out a splendid success.

So far as indications went, Ned believed that they would have a better chance of success, if they turned abruptly to the left and made up the sh.o.r.e. At least, the character of the rocky country favored this idea.

As far as he could see, it grew more and more inviting, looked at from the viewpoint of a miner, or a prospector for precious minerals.

The others were watching him closely. They guessed something of the nature of what must be pa.s.sing through Ned's mind, for both Jack and Teddy followed his gaze up the uneven sh.o.r.e. Jimmy had the gla.s.ses again, and was busily engaged in scrutinizing the blur on the distant horizon, which all of them had agreed must be smoke hovering close to the water. Perhaps he half-believed the fanciful suggestion made by Teddy, with reference to Captain Kidd, and was wildly hoping to discover some positive sign that would stamp this fairy story with truth. All the previous adventures that had befallen himself and chums would sink into utter insignificance, could they go back home and show evidences of having made such a romantic discovery up there in the Hudson Bay country.

"See the feather they say he always wore in his hat, Jimmy?" asked Frank.

"Nothing doin' _yet_ that way," replied the other, without allowing even the ghost of a smile to appear on his freckled face; "so if you please, we'll let the matter drop for the time bein'. Who knows what may happen before we get back to New York? 'Tis a great old country, so they say, for all sorts of queer things to crop up. You needn't be surprised at anything here, they tell me. And I've made up me mind to take it as it comes, and not let anything faze me. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Teddy."

"And I'm wondering," mused the one particularly addressed, "what that ancient but bold explorer, Hendrick Hudson, said when he had sailed all the way around this great bay, and found that it was after all a land-locked arm of the sea. When he first entered it, history tells us he had great hopes that he had found what Columbus was searching for when he made his western voyage, a way of reaching the East Indies by a water route. It must have been a keen disappointment when Hendrick had to turn north, and then east again, always fended off by the land."

Ned had by now determined that they ought to turn to the left in continuing the forward movement. He next looked for some landmark, by means of which on their return that they might know just where they should plunge into the woods, so as to follow their trail back to where the precious canoes were secreted.

As though he found nothing in the arrangement of the sh.o.r.e or the trees themselves to stamp it different from other places, Ned stooped down and placed several stones upon each other at the foot of a stunted oak.

That was an old trick among the scouts. Many such a stone cairn had they fashioned when playing some game of fox and geese, to serve as a sign to those who were following in their wake.

"We ought to see this, and remember that it tells us where we struck the beach," he explained to his chums, as he rose up again after completing his work.

Both guides had been watching what he did with more or less interest. Of course, they understood that the scouts had learned many of the ways practiced by woodsmen, for by now the real meaning of the khaki uniforms worn by the boys had been fully grasped by Francois and the Cree; though for a long time they had had hard work to understand why Ned and his chums were not to be looked upon as soldiers.

"Zere ees nozzing better zan a pile of stones to mark ze way," admitted the voyageur. "I haf myself used zat many times. But be sure zat you notice other things besides. It may be, an enemy he move ze stones some ozzer place, and if zat be so you all get twist up when you try to come back."

Ned nodded, as though he had already covered this ground.

"I had thought of that very same thing, Francois," he said, "and see, here is where I made a little gash in the trunk of the tree. I expected to look for that on the return trip. If I failed to find it I should understand there was something gone wrong."

"Zat ees well, sare; ze one who gets ze better of you must wake up early in ze morning, I am think!" he said softly, but in a way that told he meant every word.

"So say we all of us," added Jack.

"Ned generally looks out for snags!" Frank declared.

"We'd have met up with many a wreck only for his watchfulness," came from Teddy.

Jimmy did not like to be left out when there was any exchange of sentiments. He had a great admiration for the gifts of Ned Nestor, and wanted every one to understand what his sentiments were. So he started to open his mouth to say something, when Ned lifted a hand and gave a low sibilant hiss.

"'Sh! don't say anything more, but drop down in this gra.s.s and lie low; because I'm sure I heard voices right then, also a husky cigarette cough. Down it is, boys!"

He set them a good example by dropping flat and hugging the ground. They had at the time been standing more than knee deep in lush gra.s.s that grew beyond the woods, and where the salt water never reached, save in flying spray possibly. All that was necessary, therefore, in order to conceal themselves, was to fall on their knees and then straighten out at full length. Even the two guides did this same thing, for they must have caught the sound of approaching voices at about the same time Ned Nestor did.

CHAPTER VIII.