The other two had long ago grasped the entire situation, and in a twinkling camp was struck, and they were heading for the far shore, Larry paddling bow, the Indian astern, and both working for dear life.
Before daybreak they had reached the outlet of the lake, and, wearied as they were with excitement, haste and continuous paddling, Larry still urged that they proceed. But the Indian would not listen to it. Larry and Jack must sleep, he insisted, or none of them would be fit to face the man should he follow, which he undoubtedly would, as soon as he discovered the trick which had been played on him. So the two palefaces once more rolled in their blankets, not waiting to pitch the tent, and the Indian crouched forward near the water's edge to watch, watch, watch, with sleepless, peering eyes, that nothing, living or dead, could hope to escape.
V
Jack found sleep impossible. "I feel myself such a cad," he began to Larry, "such a sneak ever to have doubted our Fox-Foot; but oh, Larry, things did look so against him."
"They certainly did, son," assented Matt Larson, "and I feel just as caddish as you do—more so, in fact, for I should have known, and you were not expected to. From now on, Jack, let's you and I make it a life rule, no matter how much things look against any chap, not to believe it of him, but just believe the best and the noblest of everybody."
"My hand on it!" came Jack's reply, and once more those two fell fast asleep, palm to palm, but with a vastly different emotion from the one they had felt a few hours before.
"He will try once more," said Fox-Foot, as they swallowed a hurried breakfast. "He not quite give up yet. At the head of that first big rapid—you know where we portaged over Red Rock Falls—there's short cut through woods to Lake Nameless. Maybe he catch us there. We there about to-morrow noon. But he can't shoot; his gun here." And the boy tapped his shirt with an air of confidence.
"Yes, thanks to your stratagem, you young schemer," said Larry. "What do you think, Jack? Are you equal to a good tussle with his mackinaw nibs?"
"I'm not only equal, but aching to get at him," responded the boy, with spirit. "I'd give him enough to battle against."
But the man in the mackinaw had to battle against a far more formidable enemy than this little crew of three venturesome stalwarts.
For the next twenty-four hours things went on much as usual, then came the sweeping bend in the river, and the roar of the distant falls. This meant to put ashore and to portage the canoe, duffle, guns and gold bags around to the foot of the falls, for no canoe could possibly live through such a cataract, and there was no record, even among the Indians, of anyone ever having "run" it. All the morning Jack had paddled bow, and worked like a nailer, so the other two lifted the canoe to their shoulders, scrambling up the steep, rocky shores, and leaving Jack to bear the lighter burdens of blankets, tin kettles and one gold-sack.
Following their prearranged plan, Jack left the sack beside the water where he could keep a constant eye on it, while he made several trips up the heights, leaving his various packs on the summit only to return for more. Last of all he shouldered the heavy gold sack, stumbling among the rocks under its weight. As he reached the shore heights he noticed his comrades had already been swallowed up in the woods, canoe and all, but he could hear their voices and their feet crunching through the underbrush.
"Hi, boys, you're doing well!" he called gayly after them, when suddenly a dark circle seemed to wheel about his head, drop over his shoulders, then grip him around the arms. Instantly he felt the rope tighten. Someone had thrown a noose—lassoed him as they lasso cattle on the prairies. In another second he was thrown flat on his back, the gold sack was jerked from his fingers by the concussion, and a dark, evil face was leaning above his own. The man in the mackinaw had caught him at last!
Oddly enough in that tense moment he seemed to hear his father's voice saying to him, "Why, boy, you're built like an ox!" The memory was like a match to tinder. He flung his hard young legs about the man's ankles, bringing him down like a dead weight upon his own body. With the wind half crushed out of him, he struggled and rolled to protect his revolver. A dozen times the man snatched, plunged and parried to secure it, and as many times Jack rolled on top of it, keeping it securely in his hip pocket. Not a word was spoken, not a sound uttered. Only those two, the evil, avaricious, brutal man, and the fair, weak-eyed, brave boy, battling, rolling, lunging, each for the mastery. Then something caused the rope to give, the knot slipped, and with a mighty effort Jack wrenched one arm loose, felt for his revolver, drew it, and fired, once, twice, not at his enemy, but straight into the air.
"No, you don't!" snarled the man, reaching for Jack's gun with one hand, and his throat with the other. But with the agility of a cat the boy had thrown the gun directly behind him, where it fell clear of the bank and splashed into the river. The sound fell on Jack's ears like a death knell. He had not thought they were so near the brink. One more struggle and they would both be over. Then his breath left him, squeezed out by the demon hand clutching at his throat.
But those two shots had told their story. With almost stunning horror
Larry and Fox-Foot heard them.
"He's got him! He's got Jack!" gasped the Indian, dropping the canoe,
and turning with the fleetness of a deer, he disappeared up the portage.
Spitting out the strange foreign word he only used in extreme moments,
Larry followed hard on his heels.
"He's got him down! He's choking him!" drifted back the Indian's voice, shaking with dismay and rage. Then both would-be rescuers stood stock still, awed by the sight before them. Jack had once again clutched his sturdy legs about the man's knees, twisting him so that the iron fingers relaxed from their grip at the boy's throat. The man was now clutching the gold sack, but with a springy, rapid turn Jack wrenched it free. The two rolled over and over, for a short, sharp struggle, and Larry and the Indian appeared only in time to see the two shoot over the bank. Nothing remained in sight but a single hand clinging to a cedar root that projected from the rocks. It was the work of an instant to reach the hand—Jack's hand, fortunately—to lift him from his perilous position, while all but breathless he gasped, "Save him! save him! He's in the river! He'll go over the falls!"
Then their horrified eyes discovered the man, by this time far out in midstream, drifting more surely, more rapidly every second, towards the rapids.
"Here, take this rope! Save him!" cried the boy, wrenching from his poor bruised sides the very rope his enemy had secured him with.
Larry snatched it, crashing down the shore in the vain hope of reaching the drifting body. The canoe was up in the woods where they had dropped it at the sound of Jack's gunshots. He could not begin to get near enough with that twenty-foot rope. There was but one hope left—a huge overhanging pine tree a little above the falls—perhaps he could help the struggling man from its branches. But before he could even reach the tree, let alone crawl out above the river, the dark, drifting mass, with its struggling arms and white face, had already been sucked far past its furthest branches. Beside Jack, whose straining eyes watched for the inevitable end, stood Fox-Foot, his arms folded tightly across his chest, his gaze riveted on the drifting speck. Then both boys shuddered, for the swirling speck seemed suddenly to stand erect, then plunged feet foremost over the brink.
Larry returned very slowly, his legs lagging heavily at every step. All day they searched in the river far below the falls, but not a trace could be found of the man in the mackinaw.
"Is there a particle of chance that the poor fellow could escape death?" asked Larry of Fox-Foot that night, when, wearied and thoroughly played out, they pitched their camp for the last night in the forest.
"Yes; one chance in fifty. My father he knows two men escape long time ago."
"It strikes me," said Larry, grimly, "that if there is a ghost of a chance he'll get it."
"I hope so," declared Jack, fervently. "My neck will be purple