poles spread like fingers above
their crossing point. A little pile of gnawed white skulls of various
sizes represented at least a portion of the season's catch. Dick turned
them over with his foot, identifying them idly. From the sheltered
branches of a near-by spruce hung four pairs of snow-shoes cached there
until the next winter. Sam gave his first attention to these.

"A man, a woman, and two well-grown children," he pronounced. He ran his
hand over the bulging raquette with the long tail and the slightly
up-curved end. "Ojibway pattern," he concluded. "Dick, we're in the
first hunting district. Here's where we get down to business."

He went over the ground twice carefully, examining the state of the
offal, the indications of the last fire.

"They've been gone about six weeks," he surmised. "If they ain't gone
visiting, they must be down-stream somewheres. These fellows don't get
in to trade their fur 'till along about August."

Two days subsequent, late in the afternoon, Dick pointed out what looked
to be a dark streak beneath a bowlder that lay some distance from the
banks on a shale bar.

"What's that animal?" he asked.

"Can't make her out," said Bolton, after inspection.

"Ninny-moosh," said the Indian girl, indifferently. It was the first
word she had spoken since her talk with the older man.

"It's a dog, all right," conceded Sam. "She has sharp eyes."

The animal rose and began to bark. Two more crashed toward him through
the bushes. A thin stream of smoke disengaged itself from the tops of
the forest trees. As they swept around the bend, the travellers saw a
man contemplating them stolidly through a screen of leaves.

The canoe floated on. About an hundred yards below the Indians Sam
ordered a landing. Camp was made as usual. Supper was cooked. The fire
replenished. Then, just before the late sunset of the Far North, the
bushes crackled.

"Now let me do the talking," warned Sam.

"All right. I'll just keep my eye on this," Dick nodded toward the girl.
"She's Ojibway, too, you know. She may give us away."

"She can't only guess," Sam reminded. "But there ain't any danger,
anyway."

The leaves parted. The Indian appeared, sauntering with elaborate
carelessness, his beady eyes shifting here and there in an attempt to
gather what these people might be about.

"Bo' jou', bo' jou'," he greeted them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Indian advanced silently to the fireside, where he squatted on