As soon as he was safe again, Ronald became conscious that his head was throbbing painfully. He had hardly felt it since he came out of the crack into the larger cavern. He was shivering with cold too, and his one desire was to get back to camp as soon as possible.

The sun was setting when he came out of the woods at the southern end of the island. He shouted, and Jean appeared from the other side of the cabin, where, out of range of the wind, he was getting supper. He waved his hand in cheery greeting, then stopped and stared at the figure Ronald presented, his clothes only half dried, his cap gone, his hair and forehead stained with blood.

“Ciel! What has come to you?” he cried. His startled exclamation brought the Indian around the hut.

Crouched close to the fire, upon which Jean heaped fuel, Ronald told the story of his adventures. The others listened, each according to his nature, Jean with amazed expression and frequent exclamations and questions, Etienne silently, with grave, stern face.

When Ronald had finished, the Indian made but one comment. “Your guardian spirit must be very powerful,” he said, “or the manito of the waters favors you.” Then, as if remembering suddenly that he was a Christian, he hastened to add in a devout tone, “The good God above was indeed watching over you.”

“’Tis true I have been miraculously saved,” Ronald replied, “but why, think you, is Le Forgeron on this island? Are we near the Island of Yellow Sands then? I would that we could resume our search for it.”

“We will resume it as soon as this gale blows itself out,” replied Jean confidently. “We are near it I am sure, and now we know which way to go.”

“What do you mean?” cried Ronald. “Have you gained some new knowledge then?”

“Truly we have,” Jean answered springing to his feet. “Look, over there!” And he pointed across the water to the southwest.

Ronald rose and gazed. The wind had driven away cloud, mist and haze. Land, for days shut off by thick weather, was distinctly visible.

XIV
LOST IN THE FOG

All that night the wind blew a gale, dashing the waves on the rocks, where they broke in showers of foam and spray that gleamed white in the moonlight, for the sky was cloudless and the air clear and cold.

When the gold-seekers looked off across the water next morning they met with a surprise. Far away to the west stretched a dim blue shape like the figure of a gigantic man lying on his back.

“The Cape of Nanabozho,” exclaimed the Indian in an awe-struck tone.

“The Sleeping Giant himself,” the lads cried, and Jean added, “Are we not then far west of our course? Surely we should not be able to see the Pointe au Tonnerre.”

Nangotook shook his head. “Who knows,” he said, “how far the Cape of Thunder may be seen? Is it not the home of Nanabozho himself? Who knows that it may not come and go in the sight of men at the will of the manito?”

“But,” objected Ronald, “you said that island on the east shore was the grave of Nanabozho. What has he to do with the Cape of Thunder?”

Nangotook looked puzzled. “It is true,” he said slowly, “my people say the manito makes his dwelling on that island to the east, but they say also that the Cape of Thunder is formed in his likeness, and they leave offerings to him there. It may be,” the Ojibwa added, his face clearing, “that part of the time he lives in one place, part of the time in the other. Why not? Spirits may be in many places. They do not travel slowly like men, who creep along with much labor. What do the manitos know of paddling and of portages? They cross high hills at a stride, and the land and water are alike to them. Do not the white fathers say that God is a spirit and that He is everywhere?”

“Hush, hush, Etienne!” cried Jean scandalized. “Would you speak of the good God and your heathen manitos in the same breath, and even compare them with Him? And you a Christian! It is sacrilege!”

The Ojibwa looked abashed. “I am a Christian, I worship the one great spirit as the fathers taught me,” he answered somewhat sullenly. He started to turn away, but Ronald spoke to him.

“Surely,” the boy insisted, “we’re out of our course. We’ve been driven too far to the west, and must seek our island towards the east. Is that not true?”

“It may be,” Nangotook grunted, “if that is the true cape.”

“Of course it is the cape. What else could it be?”

“A sign from the manito himself,” growled the Indian, and turned his back.

The lads were not unimpressed by Nangotook’s words and manner. The dim figure, like a great man outstretched in sleep, seemed mysterious and uncanny enough to their imaginations. Thunder Cape is the eastern boundary of Thunder Bay on the northwest shore of Superior, and it is only its highest part that is visible far across the lake, the lower land sinking entirely out of view and leaving the Giant lying solitary on the water.

“Etienne says it is a sign,” Jean remarked in a low voice. “Does he think the omen good or bad, I wonder?”

Ronald shook his head. “I doubt if he knows what he thinks, but what is that to us? If we ever find the gold, we will secure it in spite of all the Indian devils in the lake.” He spoke hotly, eager to prove to himself as well as to his companion that he had no faith in or respect for the power of such heathen spirits and demons.

Jean looked a little frightened at his friend’s bold tone. Nangotook turned on him with a stern face. “Speak not so of the manitos of these waters,” he said peremptorily, “lest you rouse their wrath and bring disaster on us all.” And with a glance of scorn at the offending lad, he walked away.

“Nangotook is but a weak kind of Christian,” Ronald remarked sneeringly. “He still puts his faith in these manitos of his and fears them.” The boy was smarting under the Indian’s rebuke.

Jean shook his head doubtfully. “He is a Christian,” he replied, “but, being an Indian, he has seen instances of the power of the spirits of the lake. I, too, am a Christian, as you very well know, and have no veneration for such savage gods and devils, but I have heard strange tales of their doings and of the power of their priests. Father René says the medicine men’s gifts are surely of the devil, but that good Christians who put their faith in a higher power need have no fear of them. Yet I can see no good in offending the spirits needlessly, and bringing their enmity upon us by foolish speeches.”

To this argument, which indicated that Jean upheld the Indian in his rebuke, Ronald found no ready answer. Indeed in his heart he was not so contemptuous of the manito’s powers as he appeared, and was just a bit uneasy over his own defiance. The feeling was not strong enough, however, to shake his determination to find the wonderful island and to carry off a goodly sample of its golden sands.

The wind was still blowing so strongly from the west as to make traveling impossible. Ronald had suffered no ill effects, except a little stiffness of the muscles, from his soaking and chilling of the day before, but the wound on his forehead and a lump on the back of his head pained him considerably, so he did not care to exert himself. He remained in camp, spending his time mending his clothes and making a hare skin cap to replace the toque he had lost when he fell over the cliff. The others fished on the lea side of the island, visited the snares, and searched for some signs of the man or beast that had attacked the boy. With the exception of some footprints at the edge of the cliff, prints made by a larger moccasin than Ronald wore, there was no trace of the mysterious enemy. The tracks were found in one place only, where a little earth had lodged on the rock. On the almost bare rocks round about, no marks were discernible. Jean and Etienne would have been glad to explore the caves under the cliff, but the high wind of that day and the following one made it impossible to use the canoe on that side of the island.

The second evening after Ronald’s fall from the cliff, a wonderful aurora borealis, more brightly colored than any the boys had ever seen, waved its streamers of green, yellow, orange and flame-red over the northern sky. Nangotook regarded it with awe, and muttered something in his own language that the boys could not understand.

The next night the wind went down with the sun, but when the lads crept into their blankets, the long roll of the waves had not subsided enough to make launching the canoe safe. Since they had learned of the presence of an enemy on the island, one or another of the three had kept awake and watchful all night. When Ronald took his turn before dawn, he left the wigwam and scrambled down the rocks to get a drink of water. He was pleased to find that the waves had smoothed out into long, gentle swells. “We can surely cross to that other land to-day,” he thought. He was too impatient to put off departure, however. Why wait till daylight? The sun would come up in another hour or two. If they started at once, they could make the trip before there was any danger of the wind rising again, and, moreover, their enemies, who might be on the watch somewhere, would be less likely to see them go.

The lad returned to the shelter, aroused the others and explained his plan. Jean was eager to go, and Nangotook grunted his assent. The idea of stealing a march on their enemies appealed to the Indian’s love of strategy. Dawn was just beginning to break, when everything was ready. But Nangotook suddenly became reluctant to start out. He pointed to the mist that lay on the water and dimmed the stars. “Fog come soon,” he said.

“’Tis only the morning haze,” replied Ronald. “’Tis not thick enough to hinder us, and it will disappear at sunrise.”

“We shall be there by sunrise if we start now,” Jean added confidently. “That land is not far away. An hour’s paddling will surely take us there.”

“Better wait and see,” said the Ojibwa.

But the boys insisted. They were impatient to be gone, and could not endure the thought of further delay. Ronald especially was stubbornly determined. He knew better than to accuse Nangotook openly of cowardice, but he hinted so plainly that the Indian might be influenced by fear, that the latter’s pride was touched. Suddenly breaking short the argument, he picked up the canoe, stalked into the water with it, and held it ready for the lads to step in.

They began their trip in silence. During the stay on the island Nangotook had whittled out two paddles to replace the ones they had lost, and now, as was his custom, he took the bow, with Jean in the stern. In the dim light and the haze they could not make out the land to which they were going, but they knew the direction, and had no fear of missing the place unless the mist grew denser.

It did grow denser. The light breeze was almost directly south now and it brought the fog. Gradually, and at first almost imperceptibly, the haze thickened. Nangotook and the boys paddled with all their strength and speed, the latter confident that they would soon reach their destination, the Indian so silent and stolid that it was impossible to guess at his thoughts. Then suddenly, all in a moment as it seemed, the fog folded them in its thick white blanket. Nangotook grunted as if to say “I told you so,” but did not lessen the speed of his stroke. To turn back was useless. There was better chance of keeping their direction true if they went ahead, for in turning they would almost inevitably lose their bearings.

The breeze was driving the fog, and as they went on, Jean and Ronald were sure, from the angle at which they took the waves and the way the breeze struck them, that they were keeping the course and would soon reach land. They strained their ears for the sound of water lapping on rocks or sand beach, and peered through the thickness for the shadowy, looming shape of cliffs or trees.

On and on they went. The fog whitened with the coming of dawn, but did not lessen or disperse. It blew and shifted from time to time, but never thinned enough to give them a clear view for more than a few feet in any direction. Either the land they had seen was much farther away than they had estimated, or they were out of their course. The Indian had nothing to say, and the lads could not tell whether he had really lost his bearings and knew it, or believed himself to be going in the right direction. When they questioned him, he answered only with grunts. They had scorned his advice, and had hurt his pride by implying that he was afraid to set out. Now he was letting them take their punishment.

They were certainly being well punished. As they paddled on through the fog, without a sound or glimpse of anything that suggested land, both boys grew very uneasy. After all, perhaps Nangotook had been right, perhaps the sleeping Nanabozho had actually shown himself to them as a warning to their rashness, or perhaps Ronald’s bold speech had really offended some manito. Neither boy would have admitted to the other that he had such thoughts, but they lived in a superstitious age, and there were many strange tales current among the voyageurs of the powers of the Indian spirits and of their priests or shamans.

The brightening of the fog showed the advance of day. Yet the adventurers went on and on and on. The thought occurred to both lads that the land they had seen might not be real at all, but only a mirage or a false appearance sent by the evil spirits to lure them to their deaths. There in that dense, chilling mist, cut off as it seemed from the world of men, and going perhaps into the very middle of the great lake, whose mysteries neither Indian nor white man had ever fully penetrated, such thoughts were far from pleasant.

Even fear could not still the pangs of hunger in healthy boys, however, or make them quite forget that they had had no breakfast. The birch basket still held the remains of the hare stew from their evening meal, so Ronald helped himself to a share of it, and then took the stern paddle while Jean breakfasted. Nangotook, however, refused to give up his paddle or to eat.

The day wore away, and still the blades dipped with regular rhythm. The stroke was slower and easier now, for there was no reason, lost as they were for haste or speed. They paddled merely to keep headway on the canoe and to strike the waves at the right angle. And still, hour after hour, they went on and on, Jean and Ronald taking turns at the stern paddle, the Indian never yielding up his place in the bow.

Ronald was plying his paddle mechanically, a dull apathy having settled down on his spirit, as the hour of silence and white mist passed, and Jean, stretched out on the bottom of the canoe, had fallen asleep when Nangotook, who had been sullenly silent all day, spoke suddenly. “Land,” he said and jerked his head towards the left.

Ronald woke from his stupor at once. The first thing he noticed was that the mist was a little less thick, for he could see Nangotook more distinctly, the next thing he observed was that the water was perfectly smooth, without even a ripple, and the third and most important was a dim, scarcely discernible something, a shadow of a shape, on the left hand. He called to Jean and the latter sat up and stared at the shadow.

At the Indian’s order Ronald swerved the canoe in that direction. There was no sound of surf, yet the approach must be made cautiously, for rock shores are far more common on Lake Superior than sand beaches. A careful stroke and paddles lifted, another stroke and paddles lifted again, and then the bow grated gently. Without hesitation Nangotook stepped over the side, while Ronald held the canoe stationary with his paddle.

XV
STRANDED

It was not a sand beach the canoe had grated upon, but solid rock. The three adventurers stepped over the side, and, carrying the canoe, waded up a slope of rock until they were well above the water line. The fog was so thick they could see almost nothing of their surroundings. Scrambling over unfamiliar rocks slippery with moisture, when they could not see where they were going, was too perilous an undertaking to be worth attempting. There was nothing to do but wait until the fog cleared. So they unloaded the canoe, turned it over, propped it up, and settled themselves on their blankets in its shelter. Waiting was chilly, dreary work, but they were cheered by the knowledge that the mist was thinning. They did not have to wait long. Before the veiled sun sank to its setting, the fog, though it did not disappear, became so thin that climbing about was no longer dangerous.

The lads were eager to learn what sort of land they had reached. The place certainly abounded in gulls. The birds welcomed the lifting of the fog with such a chorus of shrill and whining cries, that the boys feared they had landed on another mere pile of rocks, one of those desolate and wind-swept spots where the gulls love to nest. There was always the chance, however, that the golden sands might lie close by.

Once more Etienne hung back and let Ronald take the lead. The Indian’s superstitious dread of what they might encounter had probably not been lessened by the Scotch boy’s defiance of the manitos or by the subsequent experience in the fog. No ravenous beast or hideous serpent appeared to threaten the treasure-seekers, however, no enormous shape towered out of the mist to warn them back. Only the gulls disputed their way as they climbed about the rocks. They soon discovered that the place was either a narrow point or an island. Where they had landed, it was only a few rods wide. Further exploration proved it to be an island, about two miles long, and nowhere more than a quarter of a mile broad. There was no golden sand, only sandstone rock in slanting, overlapping sheets and blocks with upturned edges. A narrow belt of small trees and shrubs ran along the highest part. Everywhere were gulls, young and old, and the remains of their nests. By the time the setting sun had gilded the mist with red and gold, the three had examined the island very thoroughly.

After sunset the fog thickened again, and before dark turned into cold rain. There was nothing on the island to eat, the attempt to fish was unsuccessful, and the castaways were reluctant to use the handful of crushed corn they had saved so carefully for an emergency. They would eat it next day if they could get nothing else, but for that night they decided to go supperless. Everything on the island was dripping wet, so they did not attempt to light a fire, but crept under the upturned canoe and wrapped themselves in their damp blankets. With the rain came wind, blowing in gusts and squalls.

In spite of hunger and discomfort, the lads went to sleep. They were awakened suddenly by a terrific blast of wind that blew directly into the propped up canoe, lifted the light birch craft as if it had been a dried leaf, and whirled it away in the darkness. In an instant the three were out of their blankets, up and scrambling over the slippery rocks. They could not find the canoe again, though they sought everywhere for it, endangering their necks again and again in the black darkness, wind and rain. At last, after Ronald had plunged down a steep slope into the water and narrowly missed drowning, and Jean had stumbled over the upturned edge of a broken block and wrenched his ankle, they gave up in despair. If the canoe had not been carried away across the water, they might find it, or the battered remains of it, in the morning, but to attempt further search that night would be useless and foolhardy.

The only thing they could do was to crouch down in such shelter as the belt of trees afforded, and wait for dawn. They could not even search out a good place, but were compelled to make the best of what was close at hand. The stunted trees and bushes protected them but little from the rain and the wind, that came in violent squalls, now from one quarter, now from another.

It seemed as if the night never would end, but towards morning the wind steadied and the rain ceased. Breaking through the clouds at the horizon, the sun rose red in a wind-torn sky. The waves were dashing their spray up to the very edge of the band of trees, and there was no sign of the canoe. There were other things to be seen, however. Rocks and reefs and islets, almost smothered in foam, were visible to east and south, while to west and north, at a distance of several miles, stretched what appeared to be continuous land, rising high.

The boys marveled at the sight, and at once questioned the Indian about the Island of Yellow Sands. “What was it your grandfather said about the island, Etienne?” Jean asked. “Did he not describe it? Was it large or small, high or low?”

Etienne shook his head. “That I cannot tell you, little brother,” he replied. “My grandfather told of nothing but the beach with the yellow sands and the waves rolling high upon it. Whether the island was large or small, high or low, wooded or barren, I do not remember that he said. In some of the tales, it is said that fierce beasts came out of the woods to attack the braves who tried to carry away the sand, but whether those tales are true or are only told to frighten the white man and keep him away from the gold, I do not know.”

While Etienne was speaking, Ronald had been gazing intently at the stretch of land hazy and blue in the distance. When the Indian had finished, the boy said slowly: “I do not believe that land can be the island we seek. If the Island of Yellow Sands were as large and high and plainly visible as that, some one would have found and explored it long ago. No, that is either part of the mainland, or one of the greater islands that men know. Surely to have escaped the white men’s eyes for so many years, the Island of Yellow Sands must be small and low and inconspicuous.”

“So it would seem indeed,” agreed Jean. “That land may be, as you say, a part of the main shore of the lake, or one of the great islands, Royale, Philippeau or Ponchartrain. Yet we can scarcely be sure that the island we seek is not a large one, just because men have not found it. Who, either white man or red, has ever traveled over all this great lake? The canoes go along the shores, and even the sailing vessels follow their regular courses. No man knows what may lie in the center of these waters. Is that not true, Nangotook?”

The Ojibwa nodded in assent. “Many tales are told,” he replied solemnly, “but they are only tales. No man knows.”

“There is one thing certain,” said Ronald the practical, “we can’t find out what that land is until we cross to it, and we can’t cross until we have a craft of some kind.”

“And even though we had the best of canoes,” Jean added, “we could not go through this sea.”

“Then ’tis something to eat we must be seeking first,” the younger boy responded. “I’m hungry indeed, but not quite ready to eat gull, until we see if we can find other food.”

All efforts to obtain anything else eatable failed Fishing from the rocks, even in those patches quiet water that were sheltered from wind and waves, brought no result. Nothing edible grew on the island but a few blueberries and bearberries, and the gulls had stripped the plants of their fruit. The castaways had to eat bark, leaves and roots, or try the flesh of the gulls.

They attempted to capture some of the young gulls by creeping up on them and seizing them or striking them with a canoe paddle, but all the young were full grown, able to swim and fly, and were so shy and wary that not even Nangotook succeeded in killing one. Snaring was equally unsuccessful, and some of the precious ammunition had to be sacrificed. Ronald was the best shot of the three, so the hunting was entrusted to him. Every time he fired, the birds rose from the rocks in a screaming cloud of gray and white, but he was fortunate enough to secure several. He shot young gulls, thinking they would be tenderer than the old.

The birds were plucked, cut up and boiled, and the two hungry boys and the Indian devoured every bit of the strong, fishy tasting meat. Their uninviting meal down, they set about constructing some kind of a craft to take them away from the island when the waves should go down. The trees were all small and unsuitable for canoe making. The best the three could do was to build a raft. They felled the straightest of the little trees, trimmed them of their branches, and bound them together with tough roots and strips of bark. So much of the growth on the exposed rock was stunted and twisted by the winds, that straight trunks were few. The harsh cries of the gulls seemed to mock at their efforts, but they finished their task at last, just as the sun was setting. Though the raft was small, rough and very imperfect, they believed it would hold them up and enable them to reach the distant shore in calm weather.

They had decided to make directly for that shore. The other islands and islets, visible from the one where they were stranded, appeared to be mere heaps of wind and wave-swept rock. It seemed unlikely that any sand whatever was to be found on the and the danger of trying to coast such rock piles in a clumsy raft was too great to be risked. If the gold-seekers could but reach a forested shore, where they could build another canoe, they might return and explore every island, but they must have a good boat first.