Well, to make a long story short, we took the little steamer that goes up the river three times a week to take groceries and mail to the logging-camps, and the spy and the red-haired detective went along.  The spy seemed to have quite a lot of luggage, but the detective had only a suitcase.

Tish, watching the detective, said his expression grew more and more anxious as we proceeded up the river.  Cottages gave place to logging-camps and these to rocky islands, with no sign of life; still, the spy stayed on the steamer, and so, of course, did the detective.

Tish went down and examined the luggage.  She reported that the spy was traveling under the name of McDonald and that the detective’s suitcase was unmarked.  Mr. McDonald had some boxes and a green canoe.  The detective had nothing at all.  There were no other passengers.

We let Aggie’s cat out on the boat and he caught a mouse almost immediately, and laid it in the most touching manner at the detective’s feet; but he was in a very bad humor and flung it over the rail.  Shortly after that he asked Tish whether she intended to go to the Arctic Circle.

“I don’t know that that’s any concern of yours,” Tish said.  “You’re not after me, you know.”

He looked startled and muttered something into his mustache.

“It’s perfectly clear what’s wrong with him,” Tish said.  “He’s got to stick to Mr. McDonald, and he hasn’t got a tent in that suitcase, or even a blanket.  I don’t suppose he knows where his next meal’s coming from.”

She was probably right, for I saw the crew of the boat packing a box or two of crackers and an old comfort into a box; and Aggie overheard the detective say to the captain that if he would sell him some fishhooks he would not starve anyhow.

Tish found an island that suited her about three o’clock that afternoon, and we disembarked.  Mr. McDonald insisted on helping the crew with our stuff, which they piled on a large flat rock; but the detective stood on the upper deck and scowled down at us.  Tish suggested that he was a woman-hater.

“They know so many lawbreaking women,” she said, “it’s quite natural.”

Having landed us, the boat went across to another island and deposited Mr. McDonald and the green canoe.  Tish, who had talked about a lodge in some vast wilderness, complained at that; but when the detective got off on a little tongue of the mainland, in sight of both islands, she said the place was getting crowded and she had a notion to go farther.

The first thing she did was to sit on a box and open a map.  The Canadian Pacific was only a few miles away through the woods!

Hutchins proved herself a treasure.  She could work all round the three of us; she opened boxes and a can of beans for supper with the same hatchet, and had tea made and the beans heated while Tish was selecting a site for the tent.

But—­and I remembered this later—­she watched the river at intervals, with her cheeks like roses from the exertion.  She was really a pretty girl—­only, when no one was looking, her mouth that day had a way of setting itself firmly, and she frowned at the water.