there’s nothing better than fresh Walleye cooked over a campfire,” Dave grinned, scrapping the last bit of food from his plate. “I’m going to sleep like a baby,” he mumbled after dowsing the flames and zipping up the tent screen, where they all collapsed on their sleeping bags.
The next morning, as Bill awoke, he looked around the tent and could see that Ed was already up, so he dressed and went out to see what their campsite looked like in the daylight. Ed had started a campfire, but he was nowhere to be found. In fact, the morning fog was so dense, Bill could barely see the stream, and since the grass was covered with due it wasn’t difficult to follow Ed’s tracks to where he found him crouching behind a tree, staring at the swirling backwater.
“Hush,” Ed whispered, raising his hand to point at the backwater area that was completely covered by this thick eerie haze of morning fog. “I’m watching some beavers,” he whispered.
Quietly Bill crouched down beside him, and it took only a moment before a beaver glided smoothly through the water, only stopping to slap its tail before diving beneath the surface. As the beaver reappeared on the shore, he quickly waddled into the woods to find a branch, which he then carefully added to their already large beaver dam. As Bill and Ed watched, fascinated by his work, the sun began to slowly eat through the heavy fog and then suddenly a large section of blue sky appeared. Ed must have been up since the crack of dawn, Bill thought, as he noticed an outdoor biffy he’d quietly built with some logs while he and Dave were sleeping.
When they finally returned to camp, they found Dave was already busy cooking breakfast. “I think we found a pretty good camp site, don’t you?” Dave garbled in a voice that was still half asleep.
“It looks great,” Bill smiled.
Dave had been boiling coffee in a coffee can, and he hurriedly grabbed it off the fire with a pot holder as the grounds boiled over and sizzled in the flames. Setting his makeshift coffee pot on a rock, he let the remaining coffee grounds settle before pouring their coffee.
“The bacon and eggs are almost done,” he yelled. “You better get a plate and eat while things are good and hot.”
After breakfast, Dave spread out his map, and pointed out the location where he’d found gold the previous summer.
“It should be right about here,” he said, authoritatively tapping his finger on the map. “Do you think you’re up to looking for some gold today?” He grinned.
As he looked for a response, they both smiled and nodded enthusiastically. “I’d guess it’s about a six mile hike from here,” Dave continued. “Why don’t we pack a lunch and some tools and head out,” he said, wiping the remaining grease from the frying pan with a paper towel, which flared up when he threw it on the hot coals.
“I’m ready,” Bill said, “but we better be sure we put out that fire before we leave.”
“My God, it’s almost nine o’clock,” Dave yelled, looking at his watch.
Chapter 2
The three of them found the hike along the river a torturous ordeal as they cut and chopped their way through the dense underbrush that no human had ever before disturbed. Several times they crossed the stream, to see if there was any kind of trail they could follow, but as they hiked deeper into the woods the underbrush only became thicker. At times, they even had to use an ax to cut through thick brush as black flies swarmed out of every clump, biting their bare arms and necks relentlessly.
“Holly shit,” Dave shouted. “I walked this damned stream from the other direction last year, and I never saw anything like this!” Finally he stretched his arms up toward the sky and drew in a deep breath as he shook his head in disgust,
“I just can’t believe this!”
Both Bill and Ed looked at Dave, doubting him for the first time. “Let’s just sit down and talk a minute,” Bill said, equally frustrated by what they were finding.
“Dave, do you think you made a mistake?” Ed asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his forearm and swirling his red-checkered handkerchief at a huge black fly that was determined to take another piece of flesh from his already swollen neck.
“This is not the same stream I walked last year,” Dave snarled, totally upset.
“Well, what are we going to do?” Bill scowled.
“I don’t know.” Dave whispered, tightening his jaw and shaking his head hopelessly. “And besides that, this stream seems to be drying up the further we go, which is really beginning to bother me.” As he rubbed his hand over his unshaved chin, he once again reached into his vest for his map. Carefully he unfolded it, spreading it out on the ground as his finger slowly traced and retraced the line that was supposed to be the Split Rock River. Finally he looked up as his eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. “According to this, there’s not another stream within ten miles,” he growled, pointing as he held out the map so they could see what he was talking about. “We must have hiked at least five miles by now, so we should be getting close to where I found the gold, yet it looks like this stream’s about to disappear.” Standing up, he groaned. “Things just aren’t right,” he muttered, starring at the dense underbrush that lay ahead. Then reaching out to help his equally exhausted companions to their feet, he took another deep breath. “Let’s go a little further, before we give up,” he mumbled.
After following the small stream for another excruciating mile of dense underbrush, they finally came to an open area that looked more like a marsh than a stream.
“I just can’t believe this,” Dave mumbled defiantly, biting at his upper lip in disgust and confusion. “I’m absolutely sure that this is not the stream I walked last year! There was more water in that stream than we’ve seen all morning.”
Pausing to check the directions on his compass, he stood utterly bewildered, obviously trying to figure out what to do next.
“I never thought you’d get lost in these woods,” Bill laughed. “Perhaps your mind is playing tricks on you. Haven’t you seen anything that even looks slightly familiar?”
“Hell no,” Dave grimaced, utterly puzzled by this strange turn of events. “I know what I saw, and there’s got to be another answer to this,” he whispered. “I’d have to be an idiot to be fooled into believing this is the same stream I saw last year.”
With that, Ed stared at his watch. “Well, it’s taken us almost four hours to get this far, and if we start back now, it’ll probably be dusk by the time we get back to camp.”
“Yes, I guess we should start back,” Dave finally admitted. “We’re not prepared to stay out here all night,” he said as he turned and began to walk toward camp. “But I’m going to have to somehow figure this thing out,” he grimaced. “Tomorrow, we should maybe branch out from here and try to find that lost stream that I know exists, cause this sure as hell isn’t it,” he painfully admitted, pinching his lips tightly together as he turned and headed toward camp in defeat. “Damn it, this may well be the Split Rock River, but it certainly isn’t the stream I found gold in last year.”
With that Ed looked at Bill, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been duped many times in my life, but this would be the biggest dupe ever if you’ve been pulling our leg all along,” Ed unsympathetically snarled, undoubtedly
