hat would soon drag
them to their death! In the passing of a thought there flashed into
the white youth's mind a story that Mukoki had told him of an Indian
who had been lost in one of these whirlpools of the spring floods, and
whose body had been tossed and pitched about in its center for more
than a week. For the first time the power of speech came to him.

"Shall we jump?" he shouted.

"Hang to the canoe."

Wabi fairly shrieked the words, and yet as he spoke he drew himself
half erect, as if about to leap into the flood. The momentum gathered
in its swift rush between the rocks had carried their frail craft
almost to the outer edge of the deadly trap, and as this momentum
ceased and the canoe yielded to the sucking forces of the maelstrom
the young Indian shrieked out his warning again.

"Hang to the canoe!"

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when he stood erect and
launched himself like an animal into the black depths toward shore.
With a terrified cry Rod rose to his knees. In another instant he
would have plunged recklessly after Wabi, but Mukoki's voice sounding
behind him, snarling in its fierceness, stopped him.

"Hang to canoe!"

There came a jerk. The bow of the canoe swung inward and the stern
whirled so quickly that Rod, half kneeling, nearly lost his balance.
In that instant he turned his face and saw the old warrior standing,
as Wabigoon had done before him, and as Mukoki leaped there came for a
third time that warning cry:

"Hang to canoe!"

And Rod hung. He knew that for some reason those commands were meant
for him, and him alone; he knew that the desperate plunges of his
comrades were not inspired by cowardice or fear, but not until the
birch bark ground upon the shore and he tumbled out in safety did he
fully comprehend what had happened. Holding the rope with which they
tied their canoe, Wabigoon had taken a desperate chance. His quick
mind had leaped like a flash of powder to their last hope, and at the
crucial moment, just as the momentum of the birch bark gave way to the
whirling forces of the pool, he had jumped a good seven feet toward
shore, and had found bottom! Another twelve inches of water under him
and all would have been lost.

Wabigoon stood panting and dripping wet, and in the moonlight his face
was as white as the tub-like spot of foam out in the center of the
maelstrom.

"That's what you call going to kingdomcome and getting out again!" he
gasped. "Muky, that w