de Radisson. Jean and I followed with the pack
straps across our foreheads and the provisions on our backs. Godefroy
brought up the rear with the bark canoe above his head.
At one place, where we disembarked, M. de Radisson traced the sand with
the muzzle of his musket.
"A boot-mark," said he, drawing the faint outlines of a footprint, "and
egad, it's not a man's foot either!"
"Impossible!" cried Jean. "We are a thousand miles from any white-man."
"There's nothing impossible on this earth," retorted Radisson
impatiently. "But pardieu, there are neither white women in this
wilderness, nor ghosts wearing women's boots! I'd give my right hand
to know what left that mark!"
After that his haste grew feverish. We snatched our meals by turns
between paddles. He seemed to grudge the waste of each night, camping
late and launching early; and it was Godefroy's complaint that each
portage was made so swiftly there was no time for that solace of the
common voyageur--the boatman's pipe. For eight days we travelled
without seeing a sign of human presence but that one vague footmark in
the sand.
"If there are no Indians, how much farther do we go, sir?" asked
Godefroy sulkily on the eighth day.
"Till we find them," answered M.
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