seen Mrs. Olcott and Judson," he told her. "It's very unlikely that she'll have any more trouble about The Firs."
"That's splendid!" cried Hilda. "But how did you manage it?"
Wannop chuckled.
"My dear girl, an explanation isn't always desirable. When you know how a thing's done it spoils the trick."
"Oh, well," said Hilda, "it doesn't matter, but you have a suspiciously complacent look. One could imagine that you felt satisfied with yourself."
"There's some truth in that," Wannop laughed. "I feel that we have held our own against the more brilliant members of the family. But here's Robert!"
The clergyman appeared around a turn in the road and joined them.
"You seem amused," he remarked. "May I share the joke?"
"The point's involved," Wannop said. "However, you'll agree that the wisest people's plans sometimes fail."
"I can't deny it," said Robert, looking puzzled. "Still, I fail to understand what the failure of wise people's plans has to do with us."
"As a modest man," said Wannop, "I'll admit that it doesn't seem to have much to do with me."
CHAPTER IV
THE LAKE OF SHADOWS
The evening was gloomy and there was a boisterous onshore wind when Jake Carnally stood on a sawmill dump, looking out across the Lake of Shadows. Its troubled waters reflected the color of the leaden clouds above, though they were laced with tumbling foam, and short, white-topped waves broke angrily upon the sweating sawdust at Carnally's feet. The tall pines that rolled back from the beach had faded to a deep somber hue; the distance was blurred and gray. The lake is a large one, stretching many leagues to the south, but it is strewn with forest-clad islets, and those inshore obstructed Carnally's view. On the nearest of them wisps of smoke drifted out from among the shadowy trunks and an aromatic smell of burning cedar reached him across the spray-swept sound. Holiday-makers from Winnipeg had pitched a summer camp there.
Seeing nothing out on the lake, he turned and glanced past the tall iron chimney-stacks toward a row of pretty wooden houses beside the river mouth. A moving cloud of sooty smoke floated above them, and he knew that a west-bound train was pulling out of the station. Then a man came up to him.
"Why, Jake!" he cried. "You look as if you'd been up against it! When did you come down?"
Carnally smiled. He was tall, and sparely but strongly built. His knee-boots were dilapidated; his brown overalls badly torn.
"This afternoon," he answered. "Took the river for it with two of the boys, and a mighty tough time we had in getting through. Water was on the rock portages and we had to shove round through the bush. It didn't seem worth while getting out my glad rags, as I have to take the new boss up early to-morrow."
"Looks as if he'd got lost," said the other. "I guess you heard he left for Duck Island with two of the Company's roustabouts day before yesterday. They hadn't much grub with them, but he allowed he'd be back this morning."
"What did he go to Duck Island for?"
"To prospect the fireclay bed. Seemed to think the Company might put up a smelter."
"It's early for that," said Carnally with a grin. "They've got to raise milling ore and pack it down first. I suppose you've seen him; what's he like? I don't even know his name."
"Big man, about your age. Kind of slow, thinks before he speaks, but for an English sucker he shows some sense. It's my notion he's a stayer."
"Were they river-jacks he took along?"
"Struck me as more like railroad shovelers, though they could paddle in smooth water. As there's a nasty sea running in the open, you'd better look for him. If those fellows wreck his canoe and he has to spend the night on an island with nothing to eat while you sit in the hotel, it's steep chances he fires you."
"I don't care two bits whether I get fired or no. The Rain Bluff Mining Company is the meanest business proposition I've ever run up against, except the Mappin Transport, which is worse. All the same, I guess I'll have to go. If you're going back to the hotel, you might tell the boys to bring my canoe and blankets."
The man promised to do so, and Carnally sat down out of the wind to smoke until the craft arrived. He was tired by an arduous journey down a river swollen by heavy rain, which, throughout a good deal of its course, poured over ledges and ran furiously between fangs of rock. It had needed nerve and skill to shoot the rapids, and to force a passage over the rugged portages had taxed the party's strength. Now he must launch out again and paddle, perhaps all night, in search of his missing chief.
The canoe came lurching to the foot of the dump, and as there was a chance of swamping her alongside it, Carnally ran out on a treacherous drift-log and sprang on board. A man untrained to river work would have upset the craft or gone through her bottom, but Carnally came down safely and seized the steering paddle.
"This is rough on us, boys, but it has to be done," he said. "Shove her straight out for the gap."
His companions were wiry, dark-faced and dark-haired men whose French-Canadian blood had in it a strain of the Indian – hard to beat at river work or travel through the wilds. Toiling strenuously, they drove the light craft over the short seas, with the spray whipping their faces and the foam washing in at the bows. Now and then they made no headway for a minute or two against a savage gust, but when it lulled they slowly forged on again, though they knew that to find a canoe among the maze of islands was as difficult a task as could be set them. When they labored out into the more open spaces of the lake as dusk was closing in, Carnally roused himself to keen alertness. Here the waves were dangerously high and an error of judgment might involve a capsize.
As it happened, the craft they sought was battling with the breeze some distance offshore, and Andrew Allinson, kneeling astern, glanced anxiously to leeward when he dared take his eyes off the threatening seas ahead. They rolled down on the canoe, ridged with foam, and it needed quick work with the paddle to help her over them. To make things worse, she was half full of water, and nobody could spare a hand to bale it out. Andrew was not an expert at canoeing, but he had once made a journey up the Canadian waterways and had been a yachtsman at home; and when the breeze freshened and the waves got steeper it had become evident that neither of his companions was capable of managing the craft in broken water. He had accordingly taken the helmsman's post and after running before the sea for the greater part of the day without a meal, had discovered at dusk a long ridge of rocks and pines looming up not far ahead.
They lost it in the growing darkness, for Andrew knew the risk of trying to land among big boulders on which the surf was breaking. He must paddle out and clear the end of the island, in the hope of finding a harbor on its sheltered side; but it still lay to lee of him, and breaking waves and savage gusts drove them nearer the threatening shore. He was wet through and very tired, one galled hand bled freely, and the party had consumed the last of their provisions at breakfast. This was the cause of the distressful stitch in his side, and he was painfully cramped, but he knew that he had to choose between paddling and trying to crawl out of the surf on a rugged beach amid the wreckage of the canoe. So far as the other two could judge, he was still serene, and now and then his voice reached them, hoarse but cheerful:
"A bit of a lull, boys; drive her at it in the smooth!"
He could see nothing to leeward except flying spray, but he was not deceived by the emptiness. The island must be close to them.
