channel. And in his helplessness he begged for
aid from Heaven. While lying there half exhausted, he was startled by a
brilliant light. It looked like the blaze of an enormous lamp. He
could see it rise as if from the ground below him, and sail silently and
solemnly over to the side of a butte where it lodged. The thought
occurred to him that perhaps God had sent the light to guide him to the
channel, and pointing his feet toward the spot where it was shining
with great brilliancy, he made an almost superhuman effort to break
through the suction in that direction. To his intense joy, he found that
after a little while, he was slipping off the slime and getting into
deeper water. When he felt the current under him and knew he had
struck the channel, he stood up and gazed in awe at the light which was
still glowing against the butte, and he uttered a heartfelt prayer of
thanks.

Boyton is in no way superstitious; but that incident is so strongly
impressed on his mind that he often speaks of it. He understands that
he saw only an ignis fatuus, a phenomenon easily explained; but he
believes that it was sent that night by the great Pilot to guide a
helpless human being out of danger.

Two days later he saw the Indian agency of Fort Berthold on a bluff
overlooking the river. He sounded the bugle and soldiers and
Indians swarmed to the water's edge. The latter covered the sloping
bank, standing like statues, watching for the water spirit whom they had
been told was coming down the river. Each one wore a blanket of bright
red or blue and they formed a picturesque foreground to the high bluff
and sullen fort. As Boyton came opposite, he stood up in the water and
lighted a detonating rocket. Not a breath of air was stirring and the
thick white smoke from the rocket hung on the surface of the water,
hiding him from sight. Indeed, it looked to the Indians as though he
had disappeared entirely, and when the rocket exploded over their heads
with the roar of a cannon, their superstitious hearts could stand it no
longer and they rushed up the slope like a flock of frightened sheep,
tumbling over one another in their anxiety to get out of the way.

That night he stopped with the Agent who informed him that the tribe had
pronounced him good medicine, (lucky) at one of their pow wows. This
opinion of the red men was a source of much annoyance to Paul, for they
stole every little thing belong