Chapter XXII: Blaise Follows Hugh’s Trail

Blaise had no difficulty finding the place where Hugh had gone into the woods. The white boy thought he had been careful about leaving a trail, but to the half-breed lad the indications were plain enough. Most of the tracks were such as might have been made by any large animal, but Blaise knew Hugh had landed at this spot intending to go directly to the ridge top. The younger boy was confident that trampled undergrowth, prints in the leaf mould, freshly broken branches, were all signs of his brother’s passage.

At first he followed the trail easily, but the long northern twilight was waning. As the darkness gathered in the woods, tracking grew increasingly difficult. Blaise had no wish to attract attention by lighting a torch. As he penetrated the thick growth, he was not only unable to find Hugh’s trail, but was obliged sometimes to feel his own way and was in grave doubt whether he was going aright. Coming out into a more open spot, where several trees had fallen, he examined, as well as he could in the dim light, the moss-covered trunks for some sign that Hugh had climbed over them. A fresh break where the decayed wood had crumbled away under foot, a patch of bruised moss, the delicate fruiting stalks broken and crushed, were enough to convince him that he was still on the right track.

Alternately losing the trail and finding it again, he came to the summit of the ridge. Crossing the top, he found himself on the rim of the cliff, but not in the same spot where his brother had come out. He had missed Hugh’s trail on the last upward slope, and was now a hundred feet or more to the left of the projecting block of rock. For a few minutes Blaise stood looking about him. He glanced out over the water, noting that the sky was partly cloud covered. He could make out the low point, and he realized that the rock shore with the fissures must lie almost directly below him. The twin coves, where he and Hugh had camped, could not be far to the left. Blaise was not concerned just now with either place, he was merely obeying the Indian instinct to note his whereabouts and to take his bearings.

The lad was at a loss how to proceed. That Hugh had reached the rim of the ridge somewhere along here seemed more than probable. Where had he gone then? Blaise could scarcely believe that his elder brother had attempted to climb down that abrupt descent. If he had gone down there and through the woods and over the rocks to the water, he could have got no better view of the open lake,—and Hugh had been in haste. No, he had certainly not gone down there of his own accord. If he had started back the way he had come, what had happened to him? Blaise shook his head in perplexity. Of only one thing was he sure. Some disaster had overtaken Hugh. Had he made a misstep and plunged down the cliff, or had Ohrante something to do with his disappearance?

The first thing to do, Blaise decided, was to search along the ridge top for some further sign of Hugh or of what had befallen him. He turned to the right and made his way along as close to the edge as he could, stooping down every few paces to seek for some clue. The night was lighter now, for the moon had come out from behind the clouds. When he reached the spot just above the projecting rocks, Blaise stopped still. There was no need to search for signs here, they were quite plain. The moon shone down on the little open space where Hugh and the strange Indian had confronted one another. It was clear to the half-breed boy that there had been a struggle. The gray caribou moss was crushed and trampled and torn up by the roots. A branch of a little jackpine on the edge of the opening showed a fresh break and hanging from that branch was a torn scrap of deerskin. But that was not all. Lying on the moss, in plain sight in the moonlight, was a small, dark object, a bit of steel such as was commonly used with a piece of flint for fire making. Blaise picked up the steel. It was the one Hugh carried, beyond doubt.

What did those marks of struggle mean? They were too far back to indicate that Hugh had lost his footing and slipped over the edge, seizing the tree to keep himself from falling. No, that was quite impossible, for the jackpine grew at least ten feet from the rim of the cliff. Had Hugh fought with some animal? Blaise knew of no animal likely, at that season of the year, to make an unprovoked attack upon a man. He felt sure that Hugh had too much sense to strike first with knife or hatchet at a bear or moose. Moreover if an animal had slain him it would scarcely have carried him away. Every indication pointed to an encounter, not with a beast, but with a man. Hugh must have come across Ohrante or some of his followers. Had they killed him or taken him prisoner? If they had killed him they would not have troubled to take away his body. They would have taken his scalp and gone on their way,—unless of course they had thrown him over the cliff. Blaise looked down the abrupt descent, now bathed in moonlight. Should he seek down there for Hugh or in some other direction? He decided to look around a little more before attempting to climb down.

Almost immediately he found further traces. Beyond the jackpine more crushed moss and broken bushes and trampled undergrowth showed plainly that someone, more than one man probably, had gone that way not many hours before, had gone boldly and confidently, careless of leaving a trail. Blaise dropped on his knees to make a closer examination. The moonlight helped him, and he soon came to the conclusion, from the shape of a footprint impressed clearly in a bit of loose earth, that one man at least had gone in that direction, whether he had come that way or not. The print was too large for Hugh’s foot, but, a little farther on, Blaise found another smaller track that he thought might be Hugh’s. It pointed the same way as the larger print.

The beginning of the trail was now plain, but could he follow it in the darkness of the woods? He must try anyway. He would go as far as he could, taking care not to lose the tracks.

Blaise did not succeed in following far. No longer was he aided by any knowledge of the general direction those he was pursuing would be likely to take. Under the trees the moonlight was of little assistance. He soon lost the tracks and was compelled to go back to the starting point. He tried again and lost the trail a second time. A white boy, in his anxiety and impatience, would probably have persisted in the hopeless attempt, and would have lost the trail and himself. But Blaise was part Indian. Anxious though he was over Hugh’s fate, he knew when to wait as well as when to go forward. By daylight he could doubtless find the trail easily, and could cover in a few minutes ground that in darkness might take him hours, if he could find his way over it at all. He seated himself on a cushion of dry caribou moss near the rim of the ridge to wait, sleeplessly and watchfully.

Dawn came at last. When the light was strong enough to make it possible to find his way through the woods, Blaise again took up the trail. The tracks he had started to follow and had lost in the first bit of dense growth, led him, not through, but around the thick place, into a sort of open rock lane bordered with trees and running along the ridge top. To his great surprise, when he reached the end of the open stretch, he came upon a clearly defined trail. It was not merely a track made by one or two men coming and going once. It gave evidence of having been travelled a number of times. The soft moccasins of the Indian do not wear a path as quickly as the boots of the white man, but this trail was well enough trodden to be followed easily. No blazes marked the trees and no clearing had been done other than the breaking or hacking off of an occasional troublesome branch. The men who made that trail had gone around the obstacles, instead of cutting through or removing them, but any white man who knew anything of woods’ running could have followed it.

The half-breed boy hastened along without hesitation, scarcely thinking of the trail itself, but with eyes and ears open for signs of other human beings. That travelled way must lead, he felt sure, to some more or less permanent camp. Had Hugh fallen into Ohrante’s hands or into those of some tribe of permanent inhabitants of Minong? Blaise hoped heartily that it might be the latter. Even if they were inclined to be hostile, he feared such an unknown people less than he did the too well known Iroquois.

Going noiselessly, with every sense alert, the boy caught sight of something moving among the trees ahead. Instantly he dropped to the ground and slipped like a snake among trees and bushes and through undergrowth to the left of the trail. Behind a dense clump of balsams that had sprung up about a parent tree, he lay motionless. When he thought he had waited long enough, he crept cautiously back towards the trail. Moving bushes a little distance away in the direction from which he had come, a glimpse of a black head told the boy he had just missed an encounter.

A short distance farther on, the trail turned to the right and plunged down an abrupt descent. Then the way wound up and down over low ridges, the outer slopes of which were steep to abruptness, and through boggy ravines with thick growth and treacherous moss and mud. Following a general downward trend, the trail led at last to almost level ground. Now Blaise went forward with the utmost caution, for he felt that the end must be near at hand. On this lower ground, near the water, the village or camp must be situated. Presently the lad stopped, stood still and sniffed the air. He smelled smoke.