“Their winter camp,” said he, briefly.

A dim trail led from the water to a sheltered knoll.  There stood the framework of a pointed tepee, the long 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 his heels.  He filled a pipe, scraping the tobacco from the square plug Sam extended to him.  While he did this, and while he stuffed it into the bowl, his keen eyes shifted here and there, gathering the material for conclusions.