Part 15 (1/2)

”Yes, but some one ought to light the fire and set the billy to boil.”

”Here! Hi! All of you,” yelled the big Cornishman, who had gone on.

”Quick!”

All ran at the alarm, and then stood aghast.

”The rope must have come undone,” cried Dallas.

”Don't look like it, my son. It's left part of itself behind.”

”Broken--snapped?” cried Abel.

”Sawed through with a knife,” said one of the men.

”Injuns. Come in the night; lucky they didn't use their knives to us,”

growled the Cornishman fiercely, as he looked searchingly round.

”Look,” cried Dallas, excited; ”these are not Indian traces;” and he pointed down at the sandy sh.o.r.e.

”Indian? No,” cried Abel, going down on his knees; ”the marks of navigators' boots, with nails;” and he looked wildly across and down the lake.

But the raft, their two days' hard work, had gone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

MAKING THE BEST OF IT.

”You're quite right, my son,” said the Cornishman coolly, after lighting his pipe and carefully examining the ground. ”I'm not much of a hand at this kind of thing, but it looks plain enough. Here's all our footmarks quite fresh, and here's a lot more that look as if they were made last night.”

”Last night?” cried Dallas.

”Ay, that they do.”

”But those may be ours.”

”Nay; not one of us has got a hoof like that,” cried the Cornishman, pointing with the stem of his pipe. ”I've got a tidy one of my own, but I aren't pigeon-toed. Look at that one, too, and that. Yonder's our marks, and, hullo! what's that lying in the water?”

The others gazed in the indicated direction, and Dallas leaped into the shallow water, to stoop down and pick out a knife.

”Some one must have dropped this,” he cried.

”Unless one of us has lost his,” said the big fellow. ”Any one own it?”

There was a chorus of negatives.

”Well, I'm sorry,” cried the Cornishman. ”Poor chap! How savage he'll be to find he has lost his toothpick. Look here,” he continued grimly, ”if you all don't mind, I'll take care o' this bit of steel. We may meet the chap as lost it, and I should like to give it him back.”

”Oh,” cried Dallas pa.s.sionately, ”how can you laugh and make a joke of such a misfortune as this?”