CHAPTER X

THE CAMP ON THE WOLF'S TOOTH ROCKS

The dusk was falling again and the weary travellers were looking eagerly for the right sort of camping ground, when the most startling thing happened.

As the miles were covered a feeling of security was beginning to grow. Why, they could not have explained, except that they were naturally hopeful, even when tired--which was a good thing if you consider the strain to come still. They did not complain of the biting wind, or of the snow that continued to fall at intervals, because it was a help towards safety in their opinion. Certainly it was far more difficult to distinguish objects.

Nell gave a joyful exclamation as the right kind of place loomed just ahead of them--a wooded, rocky arm stretching out into the lake. Had there been water it would, of course, have been a promontory; as it was it offered a screen and some shelter. It was much less exposed and hardly the place that a bull moose would gallop over or wolves be found on. It was altogether promising.

"Here we camp," said Nell, and David dropped his harness, stretching his arms with a sigh of relief.

Leaving the sled they both climbed up the steep and rocky bank, beating a way through snow-covered juniper bushes on to the wooded promontory. Above the lake and sheltered to a great extent, the place seemed ideal to their hopes. David began hacking a clear space with quick strokes of the little axe--a woodman learns that quick tentative stroke in the bitter north, because in the frost his axe blade is liable to fly into a thousand splinters like glass if used as it would be in a warmer climate--a sort of brisk tap, with caution. Nell went down again to the sled to bring up necessaries, for it was plainly labour lost to haul the sled up on to the promontory.

In so doing her attention was drawn to the dog Robin, who was not acting according to his usual rule, which was to lie down and watch while camp was made, waiting for his supper. He moved restlessly about, nose to the ground, this way and that, round, in and out, and presently disappeared among the underwood.

When Nell got up to the top again, laden with sleeping bags, food and utensils, David drew her attention to this.

"Some animal," said Nell; "what a plague! We must look out, Da, it might be a bear."

David thought it couldn't be.

"Bears are still asleep," he said.

"Not when thaws begin," Nell answered decidedly, as she cherished the little flame in the birch bark. "Just a breath of warmer wind and the old things wake up. Dad says you can't always count on them either, because they are so hungry and there's nothing for them to eat--no berries, no roots, no fish, because the streams are not free, no nothing. I hope it isn't a bear. Robin couldn't fight a bear."

"We should have to make polite speeches to it like the Red men do," said David. "Oh, what's the use of bothering when ninety-nine-to-one it's only a chipmunk."

The fire burned up and a cosy glow danced on the bushes that shielded the little open space. The snow water began to bubble in the billy-can. Nell was kneeling on the ground slicing bacon into the pan when from the corner of her eye she caught the movement of an alien shadow. She sprang up with a swift movement in time to see a shape melt backward into the underbrush.

Drawing her revolver the girl was in pursuit on the instant. David followed because she went--he had seen nothing himself. Nell dived ahead with the quick judgment of a woodswoman in choosing her path, and brought up suddenly in utter astonishment within a few yards of the fire.

Motionless before her stood a figure wrapped in the usual Indian blanket, moccasins on the feet, head and arms muffled in the blanket. The only thing that moved was the curious roving glance of the black eyes--absolutely black and shining like a squirrel's.

For an Indian she was pretty, her skin being much lighter in shade than that of the average Redskin girl. After the first shock of being caught she smiled, showing most beautiful teeth.

"Shines-in-the-Night," said Nell, speaking in a mixture of Chippewa and English, "you are very far from the camp of your people. Is it wise?"

"It is wise," answered the girl, and her voice was very low and quite musical. "My brother the Lizard knows, and I also know, that the trapper Little Eyes has a bad heart towards the tall white sister. She has known only his forked tongue. His heart is very black."

"It is black," agreed Nell, "but we are not afraid, because the trail is lost and Little Eyes will try in vain to find it when he goes back to the log house of our father."

The Indian shook her head, her curious, inscrutable eyes full of intelligence.

"My sister is deceived. Little Eyes will not return to the log house." She held up one hand and touched three of the fingers of it with the other hand. "One sun--Little Eyes leaves the camp of my father the Pickerel and comes to the log house. He sees a writing on the door, with fire and powder he blows away the lock, and long time he searches in the house of my sister----"

"I _said_ he would," muttered Nell to David aside.

"Brute!" said the boy.

Shines-in-the-Night glanced from one to the other, then she went on:

"My brother the Lizard has seen these things. I have followed the trail of my sister, while the Lizard went to the Abbitibbi River in the footsteps of Little Eyes. I say that he will not return to the log house. It is empty. He cannot find that which he seeks. Little Eyes has a quick mind, it darts like the head of a snake. He will come across--see----"

Suddenly she went down on one knee and made a little plan with bits of stick for the rivers.

In a flash Nell saw the danger. Finding that the girl and boy had not gone to the shack at Abbitibbi River, the trapper could start at once on a long slanting line to the foot of the lake on which they were now camping. He would argue reasonably that they had followed the course of their river, as the easiest trail, and must cross the lake to follow on down to Moose River. Therefore, the best--the most certain--place to intercept them would be where the river left the lake and went on again through the woods twenty miles to the eastward. He would not take the trouble to chivy them all over the lake, simply because they were quite sure to leave it by the frozen river road, and there, where it was comparatively narrow, he was bound to find the trail.

If he arrived before they did, he would wait, knowing they had not passed. If they went by first he would see the trail and follow close on their heels.

Either way it seemed as though he must catch them.

Poor Nell, very tired, cold, and hungry, felt this blow more than she would have done had she been fresh. She looked at the bits of stick, understanding well how the two rivers ran, side by side, as it were, though so very many miles apart, over a hundred miles.

"But he can't do it in the time," said David. He had been watching the plan also with interested eyes. "Look at the miles he's had to go. First from our shack across to Abbitibbi, then, right away down to the base of the lake. Look at it, Nell, he couldn't do it in the time. Four days!"

Nell said nothing. She was remembering vividly that one strong man alone on snowshoes, travelling light, goes at least three times as fast as they could at the best, with the sled, and the handicap of inexperience on the long trail. After all, David was but twelve, though he was so big and strong, and that long day at the waterfall rocks had been a set-back, while the trapper was a very old hand and used to immense journeys over the snow in the pursuit of his calling.

Shines-in-the-Night stood up again, and made an eloquent gesture of one arm towards the distant southern shore of the lake.

"We shall know," she said, "when the Lizard comes across the snow. I said to him at the ending of the sun on this finger"--she held up her fourth finger--"the tall white sister will rest and make camp on the rock that is like a wolf's tooth. You shall come across and tell me, and our hearts shall be like the heart of the fox that is not deceived. And now let my sister eat and rest, for who shall say how soon she must take the trail?"

"Oh, I say," ejaculated David, "I thought we were in for a decent spell to-night." Then glancing at Nell he pulled himself together and added, "It's awfully jolly of Shines-in-the-Night to take such a lot of trouble."

"My sister's heart is very good towards us," said Nell gently. "She is brave as the cow-moose and kind as the wood-dove in summer. It is well for us, and we will not forget. Let her come and eat with us now, that when the Lizard comes we may be strong, if there is a long trail to go without sleep or rest."

So it came to pass that in a few minutes the three were resting at the camp fire, making a good meal, and shortly after that David was sound asleep. Then Nell, sleeping as she had not done for many nights, because of the sense of security given her by the presence of the Redskin girl who sat by the fire wrapped in her blanket, feeding the flame at intervals and listening with the acuteness of sense that gave her hearing and instinct like an animal.

About midnight both the girl and the dog raised their heads to listen, and two minutes after they left the camp with movements noiseless as a musk-rat and went down to the edge of the lake. The Lizard came back up the bank with them. He did not say he was exhausted, or even tired, as a boy of any Western nation would have done; it would have been quite beneath the dignity of the son of a "brave" to make a complaint. He ate the food his sister gave to him, offering bits to Robin--the "ninnymoosh"--and he answered the questions she asked him in their own musical tongue, in low tones and few words.

Then Shines-in-the-Night shook Nell gently by one shoulder, and the silent little camp was roused to busy action all in a moment.

The Lizard had brought rather staggering news. So much so that Nell felt a sinking at the heart. Her spirit rose to meet it directly after, but that required some pluck.

It appeared that the Indians were right. Stenson had followed the plan they had prophesied and was, even at that moment, camped on the other shore of the lake, the southern shore opposite. Nor was he alone. Another trapper was with him, though, of course, the Lizard could not tell his name.

Then the boy said something to Shines-in-the-Night, and she passed it on to Nell.

"My brother the Lizard has seen the tall white man--the father of my sister. He is not sick, but he halts on one knee where the catamount bit him. He cannot yet go on the long trail. He is not troubled, because Little Eyes has spoken to him with a forked tongue and told him that my sister is well and content with a message."

"_Ah_," murmured David, with meaning, "just what we said, Nell! Well, of all the stinkers! But it's a jolly good thing that Dad's all right, anyway."

Nell agreed vaguely. She was thinking of the money tied round her waist! Whatever happened she would save her father's earnings, his years of work and labour, but certainly they were in rather a tight corner. Most people would have called it a hopeless one.

She looked at Shines-in-the-Night, who was two years older than herself and had all the shrewd cunning and knowledge of the wild bred in her by her Redskin forefathers. Nor did the Indian girl fail at this crisis. All the time she had been sitting by the fire while the white wanderers slept, she had been thinking out a plan, and it was formed in her mind, complete and practical in every detail.

Now she explained it.