CHAPTER III.
WAS IT A SPY?
The other fellows were coming crawling out from the larger tent when Nedand Jack reached the open air. All of them were carrying guns, as thoughlaboring under an impression that the camp must be assailed by a rivalforce.
They found the two guides standing there, and peering out toward acertain quarter. Both were too old hands at this sort of thing to showthe least sign of excitement, but Jimmy made up for any lack on theirpart.
"For the love of Mike where's the invader now? Did he trample all overyou, Francois, and is that the brand of his cloven hoof on your huntingshirt now? Was it the same old bull moose, or a new kind of muskeggiant, as big as a church? Show him to me, and see how quick I'll bowlthe critter over!"
"Keep still, will you, Jimmy, and let Ned do the talking," advised Jack.
"What did you fire at, Francois?" asked Ned, turning to the guide, forsomehow he seemed to naturally guess that it was the French Canadian whohad done the shooting, possibly because his voice had been heard raisedin a challenge.
"Man, at all I know, sare," replied the other, still looking out intothe semi-gloom wistfully.
"I heard you call out loud enough, just as you said you would do," Nedcontinued; "and instead of answering, did he turn and run away?"
"Zat is just what happen," replied the guide. "He act mooch like ze spy,and so I give heem ze shot."
"Do you think you hit him, Francois?" demanded Frank.
The other rolled up his shoulders, and made the usual "face" as heanswered:
"I do not know for sure, sare. Ze light it was mos' uncertain like. Iaim down low as I pull ze trigger. Zen he disappear, and I am unable tosay if so be he drop down just to sneak avay, or because he wounded."
"Well, we can soon find out," impulsive Jimmy exclaimed; "me to grab upa fine torch, and lead the way. Some of the rest of you form a bodyguardaround me, and be ready to give 'em a volley if they so much as peep."
It was just what Ned had been about to propose, so as Jimmy thought ofthe plan first he was allowed to have his way.
The fagot which Jimmy picked out of the fire was burning briskly by now,at one end, and could be made to serve very well as a torch, if only oneknew how to handle it. Jimmy had taken lessons in this art, and first ofall he swung the brand swiftly around his head several times, so as tomake it burn more briskly.
"There, that will do, Jimmy," Jack told him; "and now lead us out, youferocious little monster. Hold the torch so it won't blind us, remember.And if they open fire you be sure to duck, so we won't be shooting youin the back."
"Oh! I'll side-step all right, if only you give me the tip," Jimmy wenton to say.
He was already starting out with Francois to show him the way to thespot where the latter had his last glimpse of the supposed spy. All ofthe scouts were fairly quivering with eagerness; and at the same time acold feeling began to creep over them at the thought of what they mightdiscover the next minute.
Francois had shot low, and only meant to wound, but then his bulletmight have glanced upward, and inflicted a fatal injury.
A dozen and more paces they went. Everyone was excited, and lookingthis way and that, for who could say what the adventure might not mean?If there was one prowler around there might be a dozen or a score. Theyremembered what Ned had said concerning the possibility of the recklessplotters composing the mining syndicate gathering together a lawlesscrowd, and meaning to chase the explorers out of that section ofcountry, should they threaten to discover that a fraud was in the actof being perpetrated.
"Was it about here, Francois, that you saw him vanish?" asked Ned, whohad been keeping an eye on the guide, and judged from his actions thatthey must have arrived close to the suspected spot.
"I am think so, ver' mooch," admitted Francois, eagerly, and then aftertaking a backward look toward the campfire, he added: "Yes, it ees so,sare. I gif you ze word of a man zat ought to know, zat he was here whenI fire ze shot."
"Well, it looks as though you didn't knock him over, Francois," observedFrank, "because there was nobody lying amidst the brush."
Without replying, the French Canadian and the Indian guide fell on theirknees, and seemed to be closely examining the ground upon which none ofthe party had as yet set afoot.
"Tamasjo has found something," observed Teddy quickly, as he saw theIndian lower his head closer to the ground, and evidently examine someobject with eagerness.
Ned was down beside him almost instantly.
"It's a plain footprint, all right," he announced as soon as he had beenable 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 somedoubt 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 hecould have given a better account of himself, had the chance come hisway.
"Hold on, don't be in such a rushing big hurry to say he wasted hislead," 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 wedo seem to run across lots of queer things," Ned went on to say, as hepointed to where they could all see that it was so.
This fact added to the excitement. If the unknown whom they looked on assome species of spy, had been wounded, it looked like a serious piece ofbusiness for the little party of explorers. He must have friends not faraway, and after the gantlet of defiance had been thrown down by thisshot, these men might lose all restraint and show that they weredisposed to act in an ugly way.
It meant that the former sense of security and indifference was a thingof the past. From this time on the scouts must keep constantly on thealert to guard against a sudden surprise. They must learn to watch fordanger in every quarter, and not allow themselves to sleep on post.
All this change was caused by the discovery of that one small spot ofshed blood. Even the usually talkative Jimmy seemed to have become dumbfor 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; andthat would expose the lot of us to his fire, if he found himself beingovertaken, and was still smarting under the pain of his wound. Thenagain, we don't know who he may be, or what friends he may have closeby. No, the best thing for us to do is to go back to our camp, and tryto get a little more sleep. We'll put out the fire, and one of theguides will sit up for two hours with me. Then we'll wake anothercouple, and in that way pass the rest of the night."
"Sounds like business at the old stand," remarked Jimmy, "Many's thetime the lot of us have done that same thing. And, Ned, I'm in hopesyou'll be after lettin' me sit up with you. Never a bit of sleep isthere in me eyes at this minute. I'm staring like any old hoot owl in aVirginia 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 youas lie down, and just stare and stare."
"Oh! suit yourself, Jimmy," Ned told the urgent one; "though of courseI'll be only too glad to have your company, if, only you'll remember tokeep still. When we have to serve as guards to the camp it's a stilltongue that counts for the most."
"I'll promise to be as dumb as an oyster, Ned," pleaded the other; andso it was settled that he could help to stand the first watch.
The balance of the expedition once more settled down. Jack crawled aloneinto the smaller tent, while Frank and Teddy occupied the other.Francois and the Indian consulted with Ned, and then the fire was whollyextinguished. Tamasjo went over to sleep in one of the canoes, for ifthere should be any attack on the camp it was believed that it wouldbegin in this quarter, as the frail craft might be reckoned theirweakest 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 fromanything he had ever known before. In most other cases he could listento the various well-known voices of the night--from katydids andcrickets, to frogs in the marsh, night birds seeking their prey, or itmight be the small animals of the forest barking or giving tongue.
Away up here in the vast Northern solitudes a dreadful silence seemed tohang upon all Nature. Insects there were none, of a species to cause ahumming sound, and save for croaking of frogs some distance away thestillness remained unbroken for a long time.
The wolf pack broke loose again, doubtless hot on the track of a fleeingcaribou, perhaps the unfortunate one that had been wounded by Jimmy onthe preceding day when Frank knocked over the fine animal from whichtheir late supper had come. Ned listened to the chorus, and allowed histhoughts to roam to other and more distant scenes, where he had hadexciting experiences with the hungry animals himself, calculated tocause a shudder just to remember.
The time passed slowly. Several louder bursts of wolfish tongues toldwhen the hunting pack chanced to draw nearer the camp, but only to growfainter again in the distance, as the chase led the animals over barrenswhere the caribou herd fed, and across wild cranberry bogs, such as theboys could remember seeing up in Northern New York State when camping inthe Adirondacks.
When Ned reckoned that his time was up he woke Jimmy, who had long agogone to sleep as sweetly as you please, with his head leaning againstthe butt of a tree. Ned told him he might just as well crawl under thetent and get the benefit of a warm blanket; and after giving that advicecalled Frank and Jack out.
Teddy never so much as moved when Jimmy crept in to warm up under hiswoolen cover, for Teddy was a very good sleeper on any and alloccasions, it seemed. Since there was no especial need of more sentriesthan the two, with the Indian and Francois to back them, Ned did nothave the heart to arouse Teddy, even though he knew very well the otherwould reproach him for neglecting to do so.
There was no further alarm on that night, for which doubtless all of theboys were thankful, though Jimmy later on loudly bewailed the fact thathe had been given no chance to make use of his faithful gun. Jimmy wasnot at all bloodthirsty, though any one hearing him talk, and notknowing his humorous nature, might be inclined to think so. But after amost venomous harangue he would very likely wink his eye drolly at thefellow 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 soundout on the bosom of the dark river that might have been a big fishleaping, but which he was inclined to believe was made by a carelesslyused paddle.
Of course there was no way of verifying this suspicion, because waterunfortunately leaves no trail. Frank advanced the idea that it mighthave 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 imagineany living soul being away up in this country without some kind of aboat so as to get around. Now which way would he be likely to go, do youthink, 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 movingwith the current, you understand, there would be no need to swing hispaddle at all, but simply let his boat float along till past our camp."
Francois, who had been listening to all this talk while cookingbreakfast, nodded his head approvingly.
"Zat it so, sare," he ventured to observe. "Eef you ask me I haf to sayze same t'ing. Mebbe it was canoe, mebbe it was some seal zat come allze way up zis rifer from zat big ocean zey call Hudson Bay, and whichzey tell me ees six hundred mile from one shore to ze other."
"A real genuine seal, does he mean, Ned?" exclaimed Jimmy; "now I wouldlike to set eyes on one of the glossy little chaps like those I've fedin the museum down at the Battery in little old New York."
"Made enough noise to have been a hippopotamus, if only suchwarm-blooded Nile amphibious animals lived in these Arctic rivers," Jackdeclared; "but after all it doesn't matter, only if the spy went up thestream we're better be off, because that would show his crowd would befound there, and not below."
"And I suppose that after this, while we sail on through cataracts, andalong the smoother stretches we've got to keep our eyes peeled for signsof an ambuscade," Teddy observed. "Well, luckily we've got some prettysharp-eyed fellows along with us; and then there are the experiencedguides. Who cares for expenses? As long as I can poke into unknownsections where few white men have ever set foot, and Frank can writestunning letters to his paper about the strange things we run across, itdoesn't matter a cookey. We'll get to our destination, and we're boundto find out all we came to see, because the scouts always do succeed."
It was in this same confident spirit that the little party embarkedshortly afterwards. Not one of them felt faint-hearted as the unknownfuture loomed up before them. Nevertheless, could they have known justthen of the astonishing experiences through which they were shortlyfated to pass, possibly their pulses must have quickened under thestrain.
The sun was well above the far-eastern horizon when they entered thethree canoes, having carefully loaded the same with an eye to roughrapids ahead, and pushing out, trolling a Canadian boat song Francoishad taught them, started on the day's voyage.
Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay; Or, The Disappearing Fleet Page 3