Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/179

 he was restless, erratic and worried over his work, at which he often had to toil late into the  night. The hunting trip, Dick had thought, would help to put him on his feet again, and he  had, indeed, seemed better the first day, but after  that grew rapidly worse.

“It was the last thing we could do together,” Dick explained, “for I was going to enlist when  I got back; I had only been waiting until they  could find some one to fill my place at the mine. We started off in great spirits; the Indian, Kaniska, was our guide, a man we had had before, who always seemed reliable enough. He was a friend of John’s, in a way, and that queer squaw  of his. Laughing Mary, had always professed to be devoted to us, especially to my brother. I can’t imagine how Kaniska could have done such  a thing to us.”

“And what did he do?” inquired Hugh eagerly.

“He took us in a direction we had never been before,” said Dick, “through a perfect network  of streams and little lakes and swamps, and made  us push on as fast as we could, saying that we