"and that was some years ago."

"The place reminds me of the enchanted forests one reads of in old fairy
tales," said Mrs. Gummidge.

"I wish we were out of it," exclaimed Flora. "It has a sad and
depressing influence on me."

Something in her voice made me turn and look at her, and she quickly
averted her eyes.

"What's that?" cried Gummidge, an instant later. "Don't you see? There
it lies, shining."

I darted past him to the left of the path and at the base of a tree I
picked up a hunting knife sheathed in a case of tanned buckskin. We all
stopped, and Lavigne, one of the voyageurs, left the canoe to his
comrades and took the weapon from my hand. He examined it with keen and
grave interest.

"It is just such a knife as the men of the Northwest Company carry," he
declared.

"Yes, you are right," assented Gummidge; and I agreed with him.

For a minute or more Lavigne searched the ground in the vicinity,
creeping here and there on all-fours. Then he rose to his feet with the
air of one who has made an unpleasant discovery.

"Indians have passed this way within a few hours," he announced, "and a
white man was with them. They went toward the northwest."

Gummidge and I were fairly good at woodcraft, but the marks in the grass
baffled us. Yet we did not dream of doubting or questioning Lavigne's
assertion, for he was known to be a skilled and expert tracker. Redskins
and a Northwest man together! It was a combination, in these times of
evil rumor, that boded no good. I remembered Moralle's tale of the
swimmer, and I felt a sudden uneasiness.

"We must be careful," said Gummidge. "This is a fine neighborhood for an
ambuscade."

I glanced at Flora, and by her pale and frightened face I saw she was
thinking of the same thing that was in my own mind.

"Do you suppose he is near us, Denzil?" she asked, stepping close to my
side.

"Impossible," I replied. "Cuthbert Mackenzie is hundreds of miles away
in Quebec. Do not be afraid. There is no danger, and the river is not
far off."

But my assuring words were from the lips only. At heart I felt that
Mackenzie was just the sort of man to have followed us to the North--a
thing he could easily have done by land in this time. Gummidge took as
serious a view of the matter, though for different reasons, and he
approved the precautions I suggested.

So when we started off again, our order of march was reversed and
otherwise changed. Gummidge and I went ahead single fi