But,
there, standing together beside the over-turned canoe, we both saw that
the holes were far too small for a man's hand and arm and could not
possibly have been cut by two men hanging on for their lives in deep
water. Those holes had been made afterwards.
Hank said nothing to me and I said nothing to Hank, and presently he
moved off to collect logs for the fire, which needed replenishing, for
it was a piercingly cold night and there were many degrees of frost.
Three days later Hank and Silver Fizz followed with stumbling footsteps
the old Indian trail that leads from Beaver Creek to the southwards. A
hammock was slung between them, and it weighed heavily. Yet neither of
the men complained; and, indeed, speech between them was almost nothing.
Their thoughts, however, were exceedingly busy, and the terrible secret
of the woods which formed their burden weighed far more heavily than the
uncouth, shifting mass that lay in the swinging hammock and tugged so
severely at their shoulders.
They had found "it" in four feet of water not more than a couple of
yards from the lee shore of the island.
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