There's always a way and the stout heart will find it."
What way was there for him? He would die of hunger and cold
before Quonab could find him, and again came the spectre of fear.
If only he could devise some way of letting his comrade know. He
shouted once or twice, in the faint hope that the still air might
carry the sound, but the silent wood was silent when he ceased.
Then one of his talks with Quonab came to mind. He remembered how
the Indian, as a little papoose, had been lost for three days.
Though, then but ten years old, he had built a smoke fire that
brought him help. Yes, that was the Indian way; two smokes means
"I am lost"; "double for trouble."
Fired by this new hope, Rolf crawled a little apart from his camp
and built a bright fire, then smothered it with rotten wood and
green leaves. The column of smoke it sent up was densely white
and towered above the trees.
Then painfully he hobbled and crawled to a place one hundred
yards away, and made another smoke. Now all he could do was wait.
A fat pigeon, strayed from its dock, sat on a bough above his
camp, in a way to tempt Providence.
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