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

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Peril at the Bridge
167

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