er--God!

Jean was flung shoreward. Instinctively he struck out, with the current
and half across it, toward a point of rock. His foot touched bottom.
He drew himself up and looked back. The canoe was sweeping past, bottom
upward, Alden underneath it.

Jean thrust himself out into the stream again, still going with the
current, but now away from shore. He gripped the canoe, flinging his
arm over the stern. Then he got hold of the thwart and tried to turn it
over. Too heavy! Groping underneath he caught Alden by the shoulder and
pulled him out. They would have gone down together but for the boat.

"Hold on tight," gasped Jean, "put your arm over the canoe--the other
side!"

Alden, half dazed, obeyed him. The torrent carried the dancing, slippery
bark past another point. Just below it, there was a little eddy.

"Now," cried Jean; "the back-water--strike for the land!"

They touched the black, gliddery rocks. They staggered out of the
water; waist-deep, knee-deep, ankle-deep; falling and rising again. They
crawled up on the warm moss....

The first thing that Alden noticed was the line of bright red spots on
the wing of a cedar-bird fluttering silently through the branches of the
tree above him. He lay still and watched it, wondering that he had never
before observed those brilliant sparks of colour on the little brown
bird. Then he wondered what made his legs ache so. Then he saw Jean,
dripping wet, sitting on a stone and looking down the river.

He got up painfully and went over to him. He put his hand on the man's
shoulder.

"Jean, you saved my life--I thank you, Marquis!"

"M'sieu'," said Jean, springing up, "I beg you not to mention it. It was
nothing. A narrow shave,--but LA BONNE CHANCE! And after all, you were
right,--we got to the island! But now how to get off?"

II

AN ALLIANCE OF RIVALS

Yes, of course they got off--the next day. At the foot of the island,
two miles below, there is a place where the water runs quieter, and a
BATEAU can cross from the main shore. Francois was frightened when the
others did not come back in the evening. He made his way around to St.
Joseph d'Alma, and got a boat to come up and look for their bodies. He
found them on the shore, alive and very hungry. But all that has nothing
to do with the story.

Nor does it make any difference how Alden spent the rest of his summer
in the woods, what kind of fishing he had, or what moved him to leave
five hundred dollars