Troop One of the Labrador Part 18

"I've got plenty o' grit, sir," Jamie boasted. "I can stand un."

"I think you can," agreed Doctor Joe, "but your legs are short. If you get tired don't keep going. Perhaps you had better take the outside place, and if you do get tired and fall out it won't break the line."

Full of eagerness and excitement, the boys took their positions. On the left bank of the brook was David, next him to the left Obadiah b.u.t.ton, then Andy, beyond him Seth Muggs, and finally Jamie. This placed Jamie on the extreme left flank, in accordance with Doctor Joe's suggestion, and the farthest from David and the brook.

On the right bank of the brook were Peter Sparks, Doctor Joe, Lige Sparks and Micah Dunk in the order named, with Micah on the extreme right flank.

It was a great and thrilling adventure for all the boys, but particularly for Jamie. There was a mystery to be solved, and in the attempt to solve it there was not merely curiosity but a worthy object in view. If the cache proved to contain Lem Horn's silver fox skin Lem and his whole family would be made happy.

Jamie, in his unwavering loyalty, was anxious to lift from Indian Jake all suspicion of the crime. At present every one in the Bay, save only the Angus boys, believed Indian Jake guilty of it. Even Doctor Joe was not satisfied of his innocence, and, indeed, everything pointed to Indian Jake's guilt. Doctor Joe believed that the Angus boys were prejudiced in their loyalty to Indian Jake because of the fact that he had done them kindnesses.

Jamie was sure that if they found this cache there would be proof that he and David and Andy were right and everybody else wrong. Not only did this feature of the adventure appeal to him, but also the fact that he was for the first time in his life trailing in the wilderness and taking part in an undertaking that seemed to him one of vast importance.

Jamie had never slept in a tent. His only acquaintance with the great wilderness had been confined to the woods surrounding The Jug, and always when in company with David or Andy or his father or Doctor Joe.

Now he was determined to do as well as any of them, and, no matter how tired he became, to stick to the trail until Doctor Joe gave the signal to return to camp.

As they ascended the slope Jamie kept a sharp look-out to right and left. Now and again Seth Muggs on his right was hidden by a clump of thick spruce trees or would disappear behind a wooded rise, presently to appear again through the trees.

Jamie was happy. He was keeping pace with the others without the least difficulty. Doctor Joe had hinted that his short legs might not permit him to do this. He would prove that he was as able as Seth Muggs or any of them!

Nothing happened for nearly an hour, and Jamie was beginning to think that the search was to end in disappointment, when suddenly his heart gave a leap of joy. Far to the left and just visible through the trees rose the outlines of a great grey rock.

"That's the rock!" exclaimed Jamie. "That's sure he! I'll look at un for signs, and then if there's any signs to be seen about un I'll call Seth!"

Jamie ran through the trees and brush to the rock, which proved, indeed, to be a landmark. It stood alone, and was twice as high as Jamie's head.

Here he was treated to another thrill. On the west side of the rock was the charred wood of a recent camp fire. A tent had been pitched near at hand, as was evidenced by the still unwithered boughs that had formed a bed, and discarded tent pegs, and there were many axe cuttings.

"'Twere white men and not Injuns that camped here," reasoned Jamie.

"All the Injun fires I ever heard tell about were made smaller than this un. And these folk were pilin' up stones on the side. No Injuns or Bay folk does that, whatever!"

Jamie continued to investigate.

"'Twere not Bay folk did the axe cuttin' either," he decided. "All the Bay folk and Injuns uses small axes when they travels, and this cuttin' were done with big uns!"

Looking about the rock he found other evidences that the campers had been strangers to the country. There was a piece of a Halifax newspaper, an empty bottle, and a small tin can containing matches.

The box of matches he put into his pocket. They had been lost or overlooked, and no hunter of the Bay or Indian would ever have been guilty of such carelessness. Of this Jamie had no question.

"'Tis sure the rock the writin' tells about," he commented.

Jamie looked a little farther, and then suddenly realizing that he should not wait too long before calling, shouted l.u.s.tily:

"Seth, I finds un! Seth! Seth! I finds the rock!"

He waited a moment for Seth's answering call, but there was no response. A much longer time had elapsed during Jamie's examination of the rock and the surroundings than he realized, and in the meantime Seth and the others had pa.s.sed on, and Seth was now in a deeply wooded gully where Jamie's shouts failed to reach him.

"Seth! Seth! I finds un! I finds the place!" he shouted again, but still there was no response from Seth.

"I'm thinkin' now Seth has gone too far to hear," said Jamie to himself. "'Twould be fine to find Lem's silver all alone and take un back to camp. I'll just do what the writin' says. I'll pace up the places. I can do un all by myself, and 'twill be a fine surprise to un all to take the silver back to camp."

Jamie had no doubt that the mysterious cache contained the stolen fox pelt. No thought of disappointment in this or of danger to himself entered his head. His whole mind was centred upon one point. He would be the hero of the Bay if, quite alone, he succeeded in recovering Lem's property and at the same time in clearing Indian Jake of suspicion.

Without further delay he drew from his pocket the carefully folded copy of directions that Doctor Joe had given him and sat down to study it.

CHAPTER XIII

SURPRISED AND CAPTURED

"Twenty paces to a hackmatack tree, north," read Jamie. He drew from his pocket the little compa.s.s Doctor Joe had given him, and took the direction.

"That's the way she goes, the way the needle points," he said to himself. "I'll pace un off. North is the way she goes first."

But an obstacle presented itself. The northern face of the rock was irregular, and from end to end fully thirty feet in length. From what point of the rock was the northerly line to begin? Where should he begin to pace? Finally he selected a middle point as the most probable.

"'Twill be from here," he decided. "They'd never be startin' the line from anywheres but the middle."

Holding the compa.s.s in his hand that he might make no mistake, and trembling with the excitement of one about to make a great discovery, he paced to the northward, stretching his short legs to the longest possible stride, until he counted twenty paces. It brought him not to a hackmatack tree, but to the middle of several spruce trees. He returned to the rock and tried again. This time he was led to a tangle of brush to the left of the spruce trees into which his former effort had taken him. He was vastly puzzled.

"'Tis something I does wrong," he mused. "Doctor Joe were sayin' the compa.s.s points right, and she is right. 'Tis wonderful strange though."

He experimented again and discovered that if he did not hold the compa.s.s perfectly level the needle did not swing properly. In his excitement he had doubtless tipped the compa.s.s, and with the needle thus bound he had been led astray.

He climbed to the top of the rock, and placing his compa.s.s in a level position, permitted the needle to swing to a stationary position. He extracted a match from the tin box in his pocket and laid it upon the compa.s.s dial exactly parallel with the needle. Lying on his face, he squinted his eye along the match to a distant tree. Rising, he observed the tree that he might make no mistake, and returning to the face of the rock strode twenty of his best paces in the direction of the tree. Again he was disappointed. There was no hackmatack tree at the end of his line.

"Maybe he was a big man that does the pacin' and takes longer paces,"

he said to himself. "I'll go a bit farther."

He looked directly ahead, but saw no hackmatack within a reasonable extension of his twenty paces to account for the longer strides the original pacer may have taken. Much discouraged, he was about to return again to the rock when suddenly his eye fell upon a small and scarcely noticeable hackmatack six paces to the right of his north line and a little beyond him.

"That must be he, now!" he exclaimed. "'Tis the only hackmatack I sees hereabouts. 'Tis _sure_ he! I'll pace un back to the rock! If the tree's nuth'ard from the rock, the rock'll be south'ard from the tree.

I'll try pacin' that way."

With his compa.s.s Jamie sighted from the tree to the rock, and to his satisfaction the rock, lying due south, fell within his line of sight, but at the extreme easterly end of its northerly face instead of at the centre, the point from which he had run his original line.

He now paced the distance, which proved to be a little farther than twenty of Jamie's longest strides, which he accounted for again by reasoning that a man could take longer steps than he could stretch with his short legs.

Then for the first time Jamie observed two stones, one on top of the other, at the foot of the rock and at the very place to which his compa.s.s had directed him. He lifted the stones and an examination proved that they had not long since been placed in the position in which he found them. Both had marks of earth upon them on the lower side, but the stone which was below rested upon the carpet of caribou moss which covered the ground and prevented it from coming in contact with the earth. It could not, therefore, have been stained with soil in the place where Jamie now found it.

"They was put there as a pilot mark! They shows the true mark of the place to pace from," he soliloquized, replacing them in the position in which he had found them. "I'll take un as a pilot, whatever, and see how she comes out on the next track."

He returned to the little hackmatack tree and again consulted the paper.

"Forty paces west to a round rock," he read, observing, "that won't be so hard now as findin' the hackmatack tree. 'Twill be easier to see, whatever."

Methodically he gathered some stones and erected a small pedestal upon which to rest his compa.s.s while he ran his westerly line. Loose stones of proper size were hard to find. The smaller ones were frozen fast to the ground, and the larger ones were too heavy for him to move. But presently he collected a sufficient number of small stones to form a pedestal a foot and a half high.