It might even be that Yellow Bird was dead.
For three days he followed slowly the ragged shore of Wollaston Lake, and foreboding of evil was oppressing him when he came upon the fish-racks of the Indians.

They had been abandoned for many days, for black bear tracks fairly inundated the place, and Peter saw two of the bears--fat and unafraid--nosing along the shore where the fish offal had been thrown.
It was the next day, in the hour before sunset, that Jolly Roger and Peter came out on the edge of a shelving beach where Indian children were playing in the white sand.

Among these children, playing and laughing with them, was a woman.

She was tall and slim, with a skirt of soft buckskin that came only a little below her knees, and two shining black braids which tossed like velvety ropes when she ran.

And she was running when they first saw her--running away from them, pursued by the children; and then she twisted suddenly, and came toward them, until with a startled cry she stopped almost within the reach of Jolly Roger's hands.