ild war-whoop and fired a volley.
But the distance between them was too great. Only a few of the balls
reached the fugitives, and went skipping over the water, each wide of
its mark.

"Point high," said Magadar to Alizay, who had just re-charged his gun.

The Indian obeyed, fired, and watched for the result, but no visible
result followed.

"That is strange," muttered the chief; "my brother must have pointed too
high--so high that it has gone into the sun, for I never yet saw a
bullet fired over water without coming down and making a splash."

"It may have hit a canoe," said Alizay. "I will try again."

The second shot was, to all appearance, not more effective than the
first.

"Perhaps my brother forgot to put in the balls."

"Is Alizay a squaw?" asked the insulted brave angrily.

Magadar thought it wise to make no answer to this question, and in a few
seconds more the kayaks doubled round a point that jutted into the
stream and were hid from view.

But the two bullets had not missed their billets. One--the first
fired--had dropped into Gartok's canoe and buried itself in his left
thigh. With the stoicism of a bold hunter, however, he uttered no cry,
but continued to wield his paddle as well as he could. The other ball
had pierced the back of his lieutenant Ondikik. He also, with the
courage of a savage warrior, gave no sign at first that he was wounded.

At this point, where the Eskimos were for a time sheltered by the
formation of the land, the Greygoose River had a double or horse-shoe
bend; and the Indians, who knew the lie of the land well, thought it
better to put ashore and run quickly over a neck of land in the hope of
heading the kayaks before they reached the sea. Acting on this belief
they thrust their canoes in among the reeds, and, leaping on shore,
darted into the bushes.

The Eskimos, meanwhile, knowing that they could beat the Indians at
paddling, and that the next bend in the stream would reveal to them a
view of the open sea, kept driving ahead with all the force of their
stout arms. They also knew that the firing would have alarmed their
women and induced them to embark in their oomiak, push off to sea, and
await them.

And this would have turned out as they had expected, but for an
unforeseen event which delayed the women in their operations until too
late--at least for one of the party.

CHAPTER SIX.

A SURPRISE, A STRUGGLE, AND A CAPTURE.

When the Eskimo women, as