b.

"Yes, sir, wherever it takes them, and they'll shoot a bit and fish a
bit till they've used all the powder and lost their lines. So much for
them. Let's talk about ourselves. Well, gentlemen, we might make a
sort of raft thing of wood and bundles of rushes,--can't make a boat for
want of an axe,--and we might float down the stream, but I'm afraid it
would only be to drown ourselves, or be pulled off by the critters in
the water."

"But the land, Shaddy!" cried Rob. "Can't we really walk along the bank
back to where we started?"

"You saw yesterday, sir," said Shaddy grimly.

"But couldn't we find a way across the forest to some point on the great
river, Naylor?" said Brazier.

"No, sir, and we've got to face what's before us. No man can get
through that great forest without chopping his way with an axe, and he'd
want two or three lifetimes to do it in, if he could find food as he
went. I'm talking as one who has tried all this sort o' thing for many
years, and I'm telling you the simple truth when I say that, situated as
we are, we've either got to stop here till help comes, or go down the
river on some kind of raft."

"Then why not do that and risk the dangers?" cried Rob.

"Yes," said Brazier. "Why not do that? No help can possibly come here
unless Indians pass by in a canoe."

"Which they won't, sir, and if they did they'd kill us as they would
wild beasts. I don't believe there's an Indian for a hundred miles."

"Then what do you propose doing first?" asked Brazier.

"Trying to kill the wolf, sir."

"What! hunger?"

"Yes, sir. He's a-gnawing away at me awful. Let's see what berries and
fruit we can find, and then try whether we can't get hold of a fish."

"But we are forgetting all about poor Joe," said Rob in agonised tones.

"That we ain't, sir. I know you're not, and if you'll show me what I
can do more than I did last evening and afternoon to find the poor boy,
here's Shadrach Naylor ready to risk his life any way to save him. But
set me to do it, for I can't see no way myself. Can you?"

Rob was silent, and Brazier shook his head.

"You see, it's like this, sir," continued Shaddy: "people as have never
been in these woods can't understand what it means, when it's just this:
Shut your eyes and go a dozen yards, turn round, and you're lost.
There's nothing to guide you but your own footsteps, and you can't see
them. You may live for a few days by chewing leaves, and then it's