.
I shoot wild duck."

"Shall we leave one of the canoes?" asked Ambrose.

She shook her head vigorously. "Each tak' one. Maybe one bus' in
rapids. You sleep in your canoe now. I pull you."

Ambrose shook his head. "No sleep until to-night," he said.

Ambrose was lighting his pipe and Nesis was gathering up the things
when suddenly Job sprang up, barking furiously. At the same moment
half a score of dark faces rose above the bank behind them, and
gun-barrels stuck up.

Among the ten was a distorted, snarling, yellow face. Ambrose snatched
up his own gun. Nesis uttered a gasping cry; such a sound of terror
Ambrose had never heard.

"Shoot me!" she gasped, crawling toward him. "You shoot me!
Angleysman, quick! Shoot me!"

Her heartrending cries had so confused him, he was seized before he
could raise his gun.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE ALARM.

Ambrose was pacing his log prison once more. The earth had been filled
in, the hole in the floor roughly repaired, and now his jailers took
turns in patrolling around the shack.

Imprisonment was doubly hard now. Day and night Nesis's strange cries
of terror rang in his ears. He knew something about the Indians' ideas
of punishing women. His imagination never ceased to suggest terrible
things that might have befallen her.

"God! Every one that comes near me suffers!" he cried in his first
despair.

The explanation of their surprise proved simple. Watusk and his crew,
pursuing them in two dugouts, had seen the smoke of their fire from up
the river.

They had landed above the point and, making a short detour inland, had
fallen on Ambrose and Nesis from behind. Nesis had been carried back
in one dugout, Ambrose in the other.

During the trip no ill-usage had been offered her, as far as he could
see, but upon reaching the village she had been spirited away, and he
had not seen her since.

His last glimpse had shown him her child's face almost dehumanized with
terror.

Ambrose now for the first time received a visit from Watusk. Watusk
had also traveled in the other dugout ascending the river, and they had
exchanged no words.

He came to the shack attended by his four little familiars, and the
door was closed behind them. These four were like supers in a theater.
They had no lines to speak. Watusk's aspect was intended to be
imposing.

In addition to the red sash he now wore three belts, the first full of
cartridges, the second supporting a