f the ground forced them high above
the water, the Indian indicated a clump of willows through which
somebody had pushed. He declared two white men had gone through and
one had carried an ax. Jim had been looking for a white man's tracks
and his face got stern as they climbed a neighboring gully. At the top
he sat down and sent the Indian to look about. It the other men had
gone down again to the water, they must have had some grounds for doing
so, and Jim thought he knew what the grounds were.

The Indian found steps in a boggy patch, and Jim, descending a ravine
farther on, came back to the river bank. Here and there a tree had
fallen into the ravine and two or three battered trunks lay on the
gravel at the bottom. A hollow in some disturbed gravel at the water's
edge indicated that another log had rested there, and Jim let the
Indian examine the ground. By and by the latter began to talk.

He said the marks had been made by a trunk with branches broken short;
one could see where it had rolled into the stream. The ravine was
steep, but the other logs had not slipped down; the missing trunk had
been helped on its way. In one place, the top had been lifted; in
another, a pole had been pushed under the butt. Some of the gravel was
scratched, as if it had been trodden by nailed boots. A man using a
lever would push it back like that.

Jim nodded, because he knew something about woodcraft and thought the
Indian had read the marks correctly. Now and then the fellow said
"_Contox_," and Jim understood the Chinook word, which, roughly, means
to know, rather implied supposition than certainty. For all that, if
the Indian doubted, he did not. He knew the log had been launched
where the current would carry it down on the canoes, and when he went
back to camp his mouth was set hard.

After breakfast he broke up the party and, sending the Indians off,
started again with the two white men. The canoe would not carry all,
but this did not matter, since, for the most part, she must be tracked
from the bank, and when they poled her one man could travel through the
bush and overtake them at the next rapid. It was a strenuous journey
and Jim was worn out when he climbed the hill to the telegraph camp.
It was about six o'clock in the evening and the men had not returned
from work, but Carrie was cooking and got up with a cry of welcome when
he came out of the woods. She stopped, however, when she saw his
gloomy face.