Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/181

 “Berries and things are pretty scarce so late in the year as this,” Dick continued his tale as they  sat at the table. “I managed to catch a few fish now and then, and I shot any kind of bird that I  could hit. We ate some queer things, but you get so that you don’t care much. Nicholas could catch rabbits and he always brought them to me,  although, poor fellow, he could have eaten a hundred of them himself.”

He related how, after a few hours of bewildered searching for the vanished Indian, he had decided that the stream upon which they were  encamped, being larger than the others and flowing north, must be the outlet of Red Lake and  was therefore the best guide to follow. If he could find the lake, he could find Rudolm, he  thought, but what a long and hopeless way it  seemed! Now and then, in trying to cut off some of the windings of the stream, they had strayed  away from it altogether and had only found it  again after the loss of much time and effort.

“And all the time Johnny kept getting sicker and sicker,” he said, “so that I got more