were up at dawn, and, as the sunshine crept down the low hills to the west we sorted out axes and picks and shovels and crowbars, and started up the creek.
The going was rough. The bush was thick, and there was down timber crisscrossed and piled at every angle by some big wind. Probably it had all been standing when Nitche and Joe Barbe packed in the furs. If not, they must have had a sweet job.
Soon the creek bottom narrowed. The sides became high, rocky, with much loose shale and many fractures. On the whole, it was about what the letter had led us to expect; and here and there, in the creek bed, there were reddish bowlders.
At the end of what we estimated to be half a mile, Mr. Fothergill called a halt. Sure enough, on the opposite side of the creek, high up near the rim of the bank, was a big, broken fir stub, surmounted by the rough, stick nest of a fish hawk.
"By George!" Mr. Fothergill exclaimed. "I've hit the very spot." He spoke as if he alone were responsible for our guidance.
"Looks like it," Jim Dunleath admitted. "But I don't see the bowlder."
"Hidden by second growth, likely. Anyway, there is the hawk's nest."
"And there is another," said Dunleath, pointing farther up the creek.
I looked, and saw a second hawk's nest. Indeed, these lakes seemed to be the habitat of many fish hawks. All along it were their nests, old and new. This bird returns to the same nest year after year. And I presume some instinct brings its offspring back to the district where they were hatched. These in turn build nests for themselves. But the fish hawk is somewhat exclusive of habit, each pair being jealous of infringement on their chosen fishing ground, and so the nests are rarely close together. Ordinarily they are near the water, though I have seen them miles inland against a mountainside, and the birds flapping heavily to them with their prey in their claws.
"Well," said Mr. Fothergill, "it's one or the other. We'll look here first for the bowlder."
We crossed the creek and climbed the opposite bank, which was the more sloping of the two, and covered with a tangle of small growth. Through this we pushed, quartering the ground like hunting dogs. But we found no bowlder.
"It's mighty funny," said Ballou. "This seems to be the place, all right."
"How old is that nest?" asked Dunleath.
"Hard to say. Them birds fix up their old nests every season. I guess they nest one place till they die. This looks pretty old. But then so does that other nest. I wish we could find that rock. Of course it may have loosened and rolled down into the creek bed. Well, let's look around the other nest."
But, though we subjected the vicinity of the other nest to a like careful search, we found no bowlder. We looked at every rock which seemed to have rolled down into the creek bed, and found several which might roughly answer the description, though we could find no line on any of them, and even if we had found the mark it would not have done us much good.
"Well," said Mr. Fothergill, "this is the place, without a doubt. One of those rocks is the bowlder Nitche speaks of. But, as it is out of place, it is not very important. The only thing to do is to pick out likely spots opposite each nest and excavate. In that way we are certain to find the cache, though it may take a good deal of work."
"I'm not satisfied that this is the right creek," said Dunleath. "I'm going to the end of the lake, just to make sure."
I went with him. We found one small creek, and followed it inland; but it merely ran along through brush, with sloping, couleelike sides, and no sign of a hawk's nest or bowlder. And so we came back convinced that Mr. Fothergill's plan was the only feasible one.
It was hard, monotonous labor. And after we had been at it for several days there grew the depressing feeling of futility. The men began to growl among themselves. They were not hired, they complained, to strip the whole country down to bed rock. And they began to scoff at the existence of a cache. However, they kept at it for a week, during which time they had really moved an immense amount of soil, gravel, and loose rock. And then old Hayes quit cold.
"I ain't no bohunk!" he declared, with an oath. "I'm a heap too old to use a muckstick, anyhow. You young fellers can keep on, if you like. I'm through."
"Me, too," said McGregor.
"Yas, by gar!" the half-breed declared.