It seemed different in the morning. We were up at first light, busy rebuilding the fire and cooking breakfast. It was a raw morning, a thick mist lying over the water, which was lightly filmed with ice. Seeing the methodical way Laroche went about the job of striking and folding the tent, it was difficult to believe that he wasn’t normal. And yet the very normality of his behaviour only served to increase my uneasiness, and the frightening thing was that there was nothing I could do about it. I could only watch him and hope that the strain, as we neared our objective, wouldn’t drive him beyond the edge of sanity again.
‘What are you thinking?’
I turned to find Paule standing behind me. ‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. She was the last person with whom I could share my fears. Darcy, yes -1 would have to talk to him about it some time when we were alone. But not Paule — not yet.
She frowned. ‘Then perhaps you will help me load the canoe.’
The canoe proved its worth that day. We crossed three lakes in it during the early morning, with only short portages between, and just after ten we reached the long, narrow stretch of water that we’d identified from the helicopter as the first of the lakes marked on the map.
We crossed it diagonally, picked up the old Indian trail and in no time at all, it seemed, we had reached the second of Mackenzie’s lakes. But after that the country changed and became featureless. There were no longer rock outcrops, and the lakes weren’t buried in deep-scored clefts, but lay in flat alluvial country, so that water and land were intermingled with little change of level. We kept due east as far as possible, but there was nothing to guide us, and the fact that we’d flown over it didn’t help, for it was here that the snowstorm had overtaken us.
The going was good, however, the portages short and mostly easy. As a result I was never alone with Darcy all that morning. In or out of the canoe, we were all together in a tight little bunch. And the only rest we had was when we were paddling. We ate our lunch of chocolate, biscuits and cheese on the march, not stopping, and the extraordinary thing was that it was the girl who set the pace.
Darcy, of course, was much older than the rest of us, and as the day progressed and the portages became longer and more difficult, the pace began to tell on him. It told on Laroche, too; the skin of his face became tight-drawn and all the spring went out of his stride. More and more often he stopped to look at the map, but whenever Paule asked him whether he recognized anything, he only shook his head. And when the next lake — the one with the pebble bank — failed to materialize after ten miles of good going, she began to get worried.
I was up in front with her now, for my body had adjusted itself to the conditions of travel and though the blisters on my heels still troubled me, I had begun to get into my stride. We didn’t talk much, for she was preoccupied with our direction and I was looking about me at the country, even enjoying it, for it had an austere beauty of its own.
And then we came to a small lake and had to wait for Darcy and Laroche, who were bringing up the canoe. ‘How much farther to the lake where you landed the helicopter?’ She stood there, staring at the flat surface of the water with a worried frown, and when I said I didn’t know, she dropped her load and stretched herself out on the coarse silt of the beach. ‘Well, anyway, it’s nice here.’ She closed her eyes in an attempt to relax. The sun had come out, and though it was already low over the trees behind us, there was no wind and it was almost warm. ‘If only there were a hill,’ she murmured. ‘We could get a view of the country if there were a hill. As it is we shall have to waste time scouting for this lake.’ After that she was silent for so long that I thought she had fallen asleep. But then she suddenly sat up. ‘You’re sure it is Lake of the Lion where they crashed?’ she demanded.
The suddenness of the question took me by surprise. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s quite clear from the message — ‘
‘I know.’ She made an impatient gesture with her hand. ‘But Albert has never admitted it is Lake of the Lion. He never saw any resemblance to a lion in the rock he hit. And now he says Mackenzie’s map is taking us too far south. He wants us to go farther north.’
I knew then that Laroche was going to try and turn us away from the Lake, and I asked, ‘How does he know we’re too far south?’
‘Because he has recognized nothing. If it is Lake of the Lion and the map is correct, then all day we must have been passing through the same country he came through on his trek out, but he does not recognize it. The other night, after you have made the attempt in the helicopter, he warned me he thought the direction wrong. Now he is convinced of it.’ She frowned down at the pebble she had picked up and then tossed it into the water. ‘I don’t know what is best to do — to follow the map or turn north until we find something that he recognizes.’
There was a movement in the jackpine behind us and Laroche and Darcy emerged, bent under the cumbersome load of the canoe. ‘We must stick to the map,’ I told her urgently. And because she still looked doubtful, I repeated it. ‘If we abandon the map now and turn north …’ I had been going to say that we’d never find her father then, but that meant trying to explain to her why Laroche should want to turn us away from Lake of the Lion, and I let it go at that.
She had got to her feet. ‘Did you see anything you recognized on that portage, Albert?’ Her voice was devoid of any hope, and when he shook his head, she said, ‘Not even that big outcrop?’
‘I told you before, my route was north of the one Mackenzie drew you.’ He was tired and his voice sounded petulant. ‘And now we’re even south of that.’
‘How do you know?’
‘We’ve come a long way from the Indian trail and the last lake we identified. We should have reached the next one by now, the one where we landed yesterday.’
‘But you said it was snowing and the visibility was bad. How can you possibly be certain that we’re south of our course?’
‘Because we’re getting pushed south all the time.’ He said it wearily, and then he turned to Darcy. ‘What do you think, Ray?’ And Darcy nodded. ‘It’s like Bert says,’ he told Paule. ‘It’s the way the darned country’s built. It’s edging us south all the time, particularly on the portages.’
pebble he called it. I’m sure this is the lake he meant. Even the shape of it is the same.’
Laroche still said nothing and I turned to Darcy. ‘How far have we come today?’
He considered for a moment. ‘All of twenty miles, I guess. Maybe more.’
‘Then we’re about halfway.’
‘If it’s fifty miles altogether, yes.’
And we were in the same sort of country, flat, with the alluvial debris of the Ice Age. I glanced at Laroche, for it had occurred to me that perhaps this was really the lake Mackenzie had meant and not the one where we’d landed. He must have guessed what was in my mind, for he said, ‘There isn’t much to choose between this and the lake where we landed yesterday.’ He began to fold the map. ‘Either of them would fit a map like this.’
Paule frowned. ‘Let me have another look at it. Mackenzie is usually very accurate.’
But he had already risen to his feet. ‘However much you look at it,’ he said, ‘you’ll never be certain whether it’s this lake or the other.’ And he put the map back in the breast pocket of his parka.
She stood up and faced him then. ‘But I want to look at it again,’ she said obstinately.