Advancing cautiously to the south he came within view of the blaze and within hearing of much of the conversation going on there.
The night hours passed slowly. The moon swung to the south and off to the west, and the shadows lay long in the forest before the old captain moved from his point of observation. Then with a chuckle he crept back to his canoe, and long before the boys were out of their bunks he was fishing over the gunwale of the _Rambler_ in the most innocent manner imaginable. The old fellow chuckled as he dropped his line.
"That bay stretching in behind the peninsula," he mused, "looks to me just as it did a good many years ago. No improvements seem to have been made there notwithstanding the work of the surveyors, and the country is just as desolate as it was then. If I had had a little more time I might have paddled up to the mouth of the west river and looked over the situation there, but daylight showed too soon."
"What's that you're muttering about?" asked Alex clapping a hand on the old captain's arm. "You must be talking in your sleep."
"Not that any one knows of," chuckled the old captain. "I was only saying that from here the country looks exactly as it used to."
"And my stomach feels exactly as it used to," Alex declared. "You catch the fish, and I'll cook 'em, and we'll tumble the boys out for breakfast. They're sleeping too long, anyway."
This program was followed to the letter, and before noon the _Rambler_ lay up the west river about a mile from the bay creeping in behind Cartier island. At first no one left the boat, however.
"Do you remember what the chief of police said about Fontenelle's boat and a lot of perfectly good provisions lying on the bottom of the river?" asked Clay as the boys lounged on deck.
"Indeed I do," replied Case. "I've been thinking it would be a fine thing if we could find that boat."
"Sure, I have," Clay went on. "When we swung in past Point aux Outarde, you were all watching the point to see what had become of the men who camped there last night, while I was searching the bay on the north side looking for some signs of the wreck of the _Cartier_."
"And you found it, did you?" Case cried excitedly.
"Sure, I found it," Clay declared. "It lays bottom down in about fifteen feet of water, with the top of the cabin showing plainly."