The good father, according to history, was as much of a fighting man as a preacher. He taught the Indians how to build fortifications and to palisade squares with flanking towers, which were a vast improvement on their round stockades.
The boys stopped at a dock adjoining a small farmhouse, not far from Three Rivers, to buy some fresh provisions, for Persimmons’ experiments in cookery had proved disastrous to their larder.
The place was kept by a descendant of the old “habitants” of the country, a man as brown as a berry, with high, Indian-like cheek bones and beady black eyes. His house must have stood there for hundreds of years. It was of rough, whitewashed stone, and had a steep roof, with a huge chimney at one end.
While they were waiting for the fresh milk and the eggs that the habitant promised to produce promptly, they gazed about the living room into which they had been ushered.
Its rough walls were whitewashed and adorned with crude pictures, chiefly of religious subjects. Ropes of onions, hams and dried fruit hung from the roof beams. In a corner, snowshoes and sleds and firearms told a mute story of the severity of the Canadian winter. It was all as it might have been in the days of the earliest settler.
But, if the people were primitive, they had a clear idea of how to charge for their viands! There was no help for it but to pay the bill, while the cunning little eyes of the habitant surveyed the roll from which Ralph peeled the required amount. He was plainly wishing that he had charged twice as much, particularly when he saw the fine boat the boys had.
The return trip through the canals with occasional stretches of clear water was monotonous. Nothing occurred out of the ordinary. But the delay in the canals and a slight overheating of the machinery resulted in its being dark by the time they neared their island.
“Well, we’ve had a grand trip, but I’m glad to be back again,” declared Ralph, as they came into familiar waters once more.
“So am I,” agreed Hardware. “I’ll be glad to get a decent meal again.”
He glanced in an aggravating way at Persimmons, who had been the ship’s cook and bottle washer, as well as engineer at times, and was now getting a breath of fresh air above deck. He ducked just in time to avoid a well-aimed piece of oily waste which Persimmons, justly indignant, flung at him.
“Next cruise we take,” declared the disgruntled lad, “you can take the pots and pans, Hardware. And I’ll bet that anything you make will taste like your name!”
“I’d rather it did than like an unripe persimmon!” declared Hardware. Then Ralph had to exercise his good offices to make peace between the belligerents. But soon more important matters occupied their minds.
The strange craft that they had almost forgotten on their cruise of sight-seeing came back now with vividness to their recollections. The surprising appearance and equally startling disappearance of the mysterious motor boat were recalled as they threaded home waters again. As the River Swallow moved through the darkness with her electric side and bow lights glowing like jewels, each boy was busy with speculations concerning it.
Their reveries were cut short by a sudden shout which appeared to come from right under the bow.
“What was that?” exclaimed Hardware in a startled tone. He was alone on the bridge with Ralph. Persimmons was below, having returned to his engines.
“Jiggered if I know! Somebody shouted, though. It was right under the bow.”
“That’s what I thought. Hark, there it is again!”
Both boys strained their ears. Unmistakably a hail had come out of the darkness.
“Clap on the search-light quick, Hardware,” ordered Ralph.
The boy snapped the light on. It blazed out fan-like in the night, cutting a broad circle of light that revealed the whole river as Hardware swept it from side to side. Suddenly he gave a shout and pointed.
Embraced in the circle of light, and right under their bow almost, was a frail boat. In it were seated two Indians. Their craft was piled high with baskets which they had been trying to sell among the islands.
The boys knew at once that the red men came from a reservation down the river and belonged to the St. Regis tribe.
“They’re coming right down on us!” cried Ralph.
“What’s the matter with them?” cried Harry. “I see,” he added immediately, “they’ve broken their paddle. See, they are waving the stump of it in the air! Steer out, Ralph! Steer out, or you’ll run them down!”
“I – I can’t,” exclaimed Ralph in an agitated voice.
“Can’t! Why not?”
“Don’t you see where we are? There are rocks on each side. If I turn out we’ll be ripped like an egg shell on them.”
“Gracious, that’s so!” And then Hardware noticed for the first time that they were running through a narrow channel between two islands.
CHAPTER VII
RUN DOWN
Something must be done. In another moment the frail boat would be drawn by the current right down on the bow of the River Swallow and cut in two. But there was no room to turn out or avoid them!
Ralph was the first to gain possession of his senses. He sounded the gong impatiently for Persimmons. Then in the same breath he ordered Hardware to hand him one of the life belts.
“Now then, you take a rope and when we strike them, for it can’t be helped,” he breathed, “lower it over and try to catch one of the men. I’ll get the other.”
Young Ware with compressed lips nodded. At the same moment Persimmons came on deck.
“Take the wheel, Perce,” exclaimed Ralph in a low tense voice, “and keep going upstream whatever happens.”
“What’s going to happen?” asked the alarmed boy.
“In another second we are going to hit an Indian canoe. If we can we are going to save their lives. Hold fast!”
There was a grating bump and a jar, and a cry of alarm came out of the night. Hardware cast his rope, while Persimmons, with a white face and strained muscles, kept the River Swallow on her course. Ralph had taken off his boots; now he ran to the other side of the bridge.
For a flash he saw below him an upturned face, borne past with the rapidity of lightning on the swift current. He cast the life preserver, which had a rope attached to it. To his joy he felt the life-saving device caught and the rope grow taut. But the next moment, under the sudden strain of his weight, a line, stretched across an opening in the bridge against which he had been leaning, parted.
While the other lads set up a yell of alarm, they saw Ralph jerked from the bridge into the tempestuous current. Ralph struck the water and went under.
When he came to the surface, he felt as if a hundred hands had hold of him drawing him under again. Weighted by his clothes, he was sadly handicapped. But he made a valiant fight for it. He still held the rope, but he was unable to reach the life preserver, because it was borne down stream with the Indian clinging to it, as fast as he was.
For what appeared an eternity the battle kept up, and then Ralph felt himself suddenly hurled upon some rocks. Gripping them with the grasp of desperation he hauled himself out of the water and laid hold of the rope with both hands.
It pulled taut. It was plain, then, that the Indian still clung to the life preserver. Conserving his strength for a few minutes, Ralph began to draw steadily in on the line. To aid him he took a turn of it around a small tree. The slender trunk bent like a whip under the strain, but it held without snapping.
Inch by inch Ralph hauled in, and after what seemed an interminable struggle,