a misshapen giant.

"Steer straight toward the north, Paul," he whispered. "We must shake them
off somehow or other."

Silently the boat slid through the water but they heard again those signal
cries, the hoots of the owl and now they were much nearer.

"They must have guessed our course," whispered Henry, "or perhaps they
have heard the splash of an oar now and then. Stop, boys, and let's see if
we can hear their canoes."

Their boat lay under the thick, spreading boughs of some oaks. Paul could
see the branches and twigs showing overhead through the white fog like
lace work, but everything else was invisible twenty feet away. All heard,
however, now and then the faint splash, splash of paddles, perhaps a
hundred yards distant. Henry tried to tell from the sounds how many war
canoes might be in the party, and he hazarded a wild guess of twenty. As
he listened, the splash grew a little louder. Obviously the canoes were
keeping on the right course. Shif'less Sol wet his finger and held it up.
When he took it down he whispered in some alarm to Henry:

"The wind has begun to blow, an' it's shore to rise. It'll blow the fog
away, an' we'll lay in plain sight o' all o' them savages."

Henry's instinct for generalship rose at once and he saw a plan.

"We must keep on for midstream," he said. "We know what direction that
is, and, out in open water, we'd have one advantage even over their
numbers. Theirs are only light canoes, while ours is a big strong boat
that will shelter us from any bullet. Pull away, boys! I'll help Sol keep
up the watch."

The boat once more resumed its progress toward the main current. The wind,
as Sol had predicted, rapidly grew stronger. The deep curtain of fog began
to thin and lighten. Suddenly a canoe appeared through it and then a
second.

A bullet, fired from the first canoe, whizzed dangerously near the head of
Shif'less Sol. He replied instantly, but the light was so uncertain and
tricky that he missed the savage at whom he had aimed. The heavy bullet
instead ploughed through the side and bottom of the bark canoe, which
rapidly filled and sank, leaving its occupants struggling in the water. A
bullet had come from the second canoe, also, but it flew wild, and then
the whitish fog, thick and impenetrable, caught by a contrary current of
wind, closed in again.

"Did you hit anything, Sol?" asked Henry.

"Only a canoe, but I busted it all up, an' they're swimmin' from tree to
tree unti