“Just my notion! But who is this tall man with long arms, and why does Gran meet him in the forest, and say nothing to us about it? If he is in trouble, why doesn’t he put it up to us to help him?”
“Well, well, well,” chuckled Alex, “here we stand talking about films that never existed, about a campfire that never was, about a pass never on any map, about a pursuer who never lived! And over there on the shore Case is building a big fire. Now, Clay, just remember that there never were any films! We’re not going to have this trip spoiled with any mystery! What is Case building his fire for before he catches a fish?”
“He’ll probably dig a hole in the ground, fill it full of hot rocks, and make a regular oven of it, before he gets the fish. Then, when he has the bird, fresh from the river, he’ll heat up the rocks again, wrap the fish in leaves and put it into the oven, with hot rocks on top of it and under it, and cover the whole outfit up with leaves and earth.”
“Is that the way to bake fish in the woods?”
“That surely is the way,” answered Clay. “Now, you see. Gran has gone into the forest. Perhaps you’d better be getting ashore.”
“I just don’t like this sleuthing business a little bit!” the boy grumbled, as they drew the canoe back to the _Rambler_.
“It seems to be necessary,” Clay replied. “If we are ever to acquit Gran, in our minds, of all crookedness, we’ve got to know the truth, and the only way to learn the truth, it seems to me, is to find it out for ourselves.”
“That’s just it!” Alex agreed. “If this was to be done to get the kid into trouble I wouldn’t be mixed up in it, but as it is to get him out of trouble. I’ll go to the limit.”
Alex paddled off to the shore, which was not very far away, and Clay saw him stop for a moment and talk with Case then dive into the forest. By this time the sunshine had left the valley of the Columbia. Away over to the west, beyond the ridges, it would shine on the broken country—on a new world in the making—for an hour or more, but here its rays were stopped by the peaks which shone, white and still, above the cedars.
Clay sat for a long time, watching Case angling for the “big one,” he had mentioned, and listening to the call of birds high up in the air. Like all feathered things they were abandoning the lower levels and sweeping in swinging circles up into the sky to catch the latest rays of the sinking sun. Their wings glistened golden in the light and their musical voices came down soothingly.