e canoe.

And with that, and even as Menehwehna sprang to his feet to reach and
rescue him, Barboux let fly an oath, planted the butt of his musket
against the bank, and thrust the canoe off. It was done in a second.
In another, the canoe had lurched afloat, the edge of the rapid
whirled her bow round, and she went spinning down-stream.

All this John saw distinctly, and afterwards recalled it all in
order, as it befell. But sometimes, as he recalled it, he seemed to
be watching the scene with an excruciating ache in his brain; at
others, in a delicious languor of weakness. He remembered too how
the banks suddenly gathered speed and slid past while the boat
plunged and was whirled off in the heart of the rapid. Muskingon had
uttered no cry: but back--far back--on the shore sounded the whoops
of the Iroquois.

Then--almost at once--the canoe was floating on smooth water and
Menehwehna talking with Barboux.

"It had better be done so," Menehwehna was saying. "You are younger
than I, and stronger, and it will give you a better chance."

"Don't be a fool," growled Barboux. "The man was dead, I tell you.
They are always dead when they jump like that. _Que diable!_ I have
seen enough fighting to know."

But Menehwehna replied, "You need much sleep and you cannot watch
against me. I have reloaded my gun, and the lock of yours is wet.
Indeed, therefore, it must be as I say."

After this, Barboux said very little: but the canoe was paddled to
shore and the two men walked aside into the woods. The sun was
setting and they cast long shadows upon the bank as they stepped out.

John lay still and dozed fitfully, waking up now and then to brush
away the mosquitoes that came with the first falling shadows to
plague him.

By and by in the twilight Menehwehna returned and stood above the
bank. He tossed a bundle into the canoe, stepped after it, and
pushed off without hurry.

John laughed, as a child might laugh, guessing some foolish riddle.

"You have killed him!"

"He did wickedly," answered Menehwehna. "He was a fool and past
bearing."

John laughed again; and, being satisfied, dropped asleep.

CHAPTER X.

BOISVEYRAC.

Along the river-front of Boisveyrac, on the slopes between the stone
walls of the Seigniory and the broad St. Lawrence, Dominique Guyon,
the Seigneur's farmer, strode to and fro encouraging the harvesters.

"Work, my children! Work!"

He said it over and over again, using the