But these were of no interest to Pete. He was trailing other game, and like an avenging Nemesis, slowly crept through this vast, sombre, and forbidding forest. When nightfall neared, he hauled his canoe out where a stretch of hard bank favored, and camped for the night, and when daylight came again, he pushed on. For three days this watchful, up-stream journey was continued, and then a range of low mountains began to close in, short rapids needing the use of a setting-pole were met, and at last a series of stair-like falls was sighted ahead. The sun was well down when these were reached. How long the necessary carry might be, he could not tell, and hauling out below the rapids, Pete took his rifle and crept up along the bank. So far not a sign indicating whether or not McGuire had gone up this stream had been found, but here, if anywhere, they must be met, and Pete watched eagerly for them. Every rock where a human foot might scrape away the moss was scanned. Each bending bough and bush was observed, and when, perforce, he had to leave the rock-lined bank and make a detour, he still watched for signs. At the top of this long pitch, the tall trees also ended, and here the stream issued from a vast bush-grown swamp devoid of timber. A few dead trees rose from it, and climbing a low spruce, Pete saw this whitened expanse of spectral cones extended for miles. It was a forbidding prospect. The stream's course appeared visible only a few rods. It seemed hardly probable the man he was trailing would cross this swamp. No signs of his ascending this waterway had so far been met, and Pete, now discouraged, was about to return to his canoe and on the morn go back, when, glancing across the stream, he saw a tiny opening in the bushes, as if they had been pushed aside. To cross, leaping from rock to rock in the rapids below, was his next move, and returning to where the fall began, there, just back from this point, and beside a ledge, were the charred embers of a camp-fire. Weeks old, without doubt, for rain had fallen on them, and all about were the footprints of some one wearing boots. CHAPTER XVIII "'Tain't allus the bell cow that gives the most milk." --Old Cy Walker. Old Cy was, above all, a peaceable man, and while curiosity had led him to follow the trail of this robber and to cross this vast swamp, now that he saw the suggestive smoke sign, he hesitated about venturing nearer. "I guess we'd best be keerful," he whispered to Ray, "or we may wish we had been. I callate our pirate friend's got a hidin' spot over thar, 'n' most likely don't want callers. He may be only a queer old trapper a little short o' scruples ag'in' takin' what he finds, 'n' then ag'in he may be worse'n that. His campin' spot's ag'in' him, anyhow."