Rushton held on and proved the correctness of his theory, and finally made the island, canoe and all, after being in the water over five hours.  He described to us how he crawled up on to the shore, and fainted at once, with his feet lying half in the water; how lost and terrified he felt upon regaining consciousness in the dark; how the canoe had drifted away and his extraordinary luck in finding it caught again at the end of the island by a projecting cedar branch.  He told us that the little axe—­another bit of real luck—­had caught in the thwart when the canoe turned over, and how the little bottle in his pocket holding the emergency matches was whole and dry.  He made a blazing fire and searched the island from end to end, calling upon Jake in the darkness, but getting no answer; till, finally, so many half-drowned men seemed to come crawling out of the water on to the rocks, and vanish among the shadows when he came up with them, that he lost his nerve completely and returned to lie down by the fire till the daylight came.

He then cut a bough to replace the lost paddles, and after one more useless search for his lost companion, he got into the canoe, fearing every moment he would upset again, and crossed over to the mainland.  He knew roughly the position of our camping place, and after paddling day and night, and making many weary portages, without food or covering, he reached us two days later.

This, more or less, was the story, and we, knowing whereof he spoke, knew that every word was literally true, and at the same time went to the building up of a hideous and prodigious lie.

Once the recital was over, he collapsed, and Silver Fizz, after a general expression of sympathy from the rest of us, came again to the rescue.

“But now, Mister, you jest got to eat and drink whether you’ve a mind to, or no.”

And Matt Morris, cook that night, soon had the fried trout and bacon, and the wheat cakes and hot coffee passing round a rather silent and oppressed circle.  So we ate round the fire, ravenously, as we had eaten every night for the past six weeks, but with this difference:  that there was one among us who was more than ravenous—­and he gorged.

In spite of all our devices he somehow kept himself the centre of observation.  When his tin mug was empty, Morris instantly passed the tea-pail; when he began to mop up the bacon grease with the dough on his fork, Hank reached out for the frying pan; and the can of steaming boiled potatoes was always by his side.  And there was another difference as well:  he was sick, terribly sick before the meal was over, and this sudden nausea after food was more eloquent than words of what the man had passed through on his dreadful, foodless, ghost-haunted journey of forty miles to our camp.  In the darkness he thought he would go crazy, he said.  There were voices in the trees, and figures were always lifting themselves out of the water, or from behind boulders, to look at him and make awful signs.  Jake constantly peered at him through the underbrush, and everywhere the shadows were moving, with eyes, footsteps, and following shapes.