“Now for Fort Dunwoody,” Dick breathed a sigh of relief.
“If I wasn’t an optimist,” Sandy added, “I’d say we aren’t there yet by a long shot.”
Toma silently sculled the craft into the center of the river, and they were once more floating down the stream. The boys marveled at Toma’s deftness with the paddle, though they themselves were experts. The young Indian seemed able to make the canoe fly with his quick, powerful strokes.
A half hour of paddling and the roofs of Mackenzie’s Landing had disappeared in the haze of the morning, and once more the walls of the silent spruce forest closed in on either side of them.
Late that night they camped some twenty miles from the trading post, in a little clearing at the river’s edge. Toma mentioned “bear sign,” and so they hung up their flour and bacon on a tree bough for fear a bear might get it.
Sandy kept first watch while Toma and Dick slept.
It was a dark night. Only the stars were out, and when the fire died down Sandy scarcely could see a dozen paces from the camp. Occasionally he glanced into the shadows, listening to the mysterious sounds of the forest, and starting up at each crackle of a twig or rustle of undergrowth.
Sandy wondered if the men on their trail had been thrown off, and imagined what he would do if they would suddenly attack. As he thought of the dangers threatening Dick and him, his hand tightened on his rifle.
It was nearly eleven o’clock, the time he was to call Toma for the second watch, when Sandy became conscious of some sinister presence. Before he really saw or heard anything, he shivered and looked fearfully about into the gloom of the forest.
A scratching and grunting noise attracted his attention to the tree where they had hung up the flour and bacon. It seemed he could hear the shuffle of heavy feet and the wheeze of giant lungs as he listened intently.
“I won’t call Dick and Toma,” thought Sandy. “It may be only my imagination. I’ll go see what it is.”
Heart beating wildly, Sandy commenced to creep toward the point he had heard the noises. He could see nothing in the dark, yet as he strained his eyes it seemed to him that one portion of the blackness was blacker than the rest.
Suddenly, he heard the crashing of a splintered tree bough. A low, vibrating growl followed, and Sandy dropped upon his stomach. There came a slapping, thumping sound, then an angry growling and tussling. The dark blot lurched downward. Sandy raised his rifle and blazed away at the shape. A rambling roar rose in the night.