Five minutes passed—–­ten.  Still George waited, watching a little spiral of smoke curl up into the air.  Then the canoe came into sight again, bobbing gently away from the island.  Now it was empty.

“Hello!  He’s not in it!” Rawson exclaimed, shading his eyes with one hand.  “The canoe has floated away with his clothes!  He’ll have to swim for it!”

In another moment he saw Joe scramble up on one of the boulders, fling off his remaining clothes, and dive into the water in pursuit of the flighty craft.  Reaching it, the Indian did not climb aboard, but swam back to shore, pushing it in front of him.  Then Rawson stepped down from his rock and slipped along the bank until he emerged from the undergrowth just where Joe was landing.

“Mighty careless of you, Joe,” he said, laughing.

Startled, Joe looked around to see whence came the familiar voice.  His eyes met Rawson’s, and he grinned with pleasure, as soon as he had recovered from the surprise of seeing the unexpected apparition of a naked white man in those wilds.  Red man and white man, children of the wild, in a state of nature, shook hands in friendly greeting.  Then Rawson explained how they had been waiting for Joe to appear on the scene.

“What have you got there, Joe?” he finally asked, pointing to a brisk little fire and a pile of flat stones heating therein.

“Got heap plenty fine fish,” answered Joe.  “We have dinner here on island, what?”

“All right.  Lend me this old canoe, and I’ll go and get the boys and bring them over, while you are cooking the fish.”

This was done; and when all had dressed and piled into the canoe, a jolly and hungry party gathered on the island.  Joe showed them how to broil the fish on the hot stones; they brought out their sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, and milk, and all “fell to” with a keen appetite.  Joe remembered seeing Ralph at the market in Oakvale, and he grunted approvingly when informed that Ralph was to be a visitor at camp.

They paddled across the lake and began the journey through the woods on the southern shore.  But they had not gone far when they were overtaken by a thunderstorm, which drove them to the shelter of a cave at the base of a cliff forming one side of a broad ravine.  The rain fell in torrents, mingled with hail, the thunder rolled and reverberated among the hills, and the skies were riven by vivid flashes of lightning.  Within the cave, however, they were snug and dry.

“We’re safe here,” said Rawson, “and we’ll camp here for the night.”

CHAPTER X

CAMP LIFE

After a long march through magnificent forests, along winding streams, up and down the sides of steep hills, the boys and their leader and the guide reached Pioneer Camp late the following afternoon.

A rousing welcome awaited them, and almost the first news they heard was that Tom Sherwood had been elected leader of the Otter patrol, during Alec Sands’ absence.