above him stood the
commander with some of his staff, anxiously watching the experiment.
The shore was lined with soldiers, as though they had come to witness a
boat-race. Scotty had a fleeting glimpse of them as he raced past, and
then his boat was caught in the swift current and shot forward with
lightning speed. The men bent to their oars with all the might of
their brawny arms, to give their helmsman more power, Dan stood in the
bow, alert and tense, his paddle ready, and Scotty held the tiller in
an iron grip. The channel curved sharply to right and left; at the
quickest turns great rocks stood in mid-stream over which the angry
waters boiled and roared. At many points an instant's hesitation on
his own part, Scotty well knew, or a second's relaxation of Dan's
vigilance, would hurl boat and crew to destruction. They were in it
now, dashing through a blinding rain of spray, leaping, turning,
dodging, twisting, as though the boat were a living creature pursued.

Down they shot through the boiling zig-zag current, now avoiding great,
jagged rocks by a hair's-breadth, now bounding like a deer over a
smooth incline, now plunging into a seething white billow; and, when at
last they swept round into the quiet bay at the foot of the cataract,
Dan leaped up, and waving his paddle on high uttered a wild war-whoop
learned long ago in the swamps of the Oro. There was an answering
cheer from the group of men waiting at the landing. "Well done, Big
Scalper!" cried the foreman.

A young naval officer who had just ridden down from the head of the
rapid turned quickly at the words.

"What, Big Scalper, is that you?" he cried as the pilots stepped from
the boat. "How is it you're not hanged yet?"

Scotty glanced up and encountered a laughing glance from the speaker's
merry eyes. He recognised the young man whom Dan had vainly tried to
befool, away back at the beginning of the voyage. He was prevented
from replying by a word from the officer in command. As the voyageurs
were few and the boats many they had to walk back to the head of the
cataract as soon as one descent was accomplished and prepare for
another. Their commander was bidding them make haste, and, when Scotty
turned to leave the landing, the young man had disappeared. He was
vaguely disappointed. There was something very attractive in his
good-humoured familiarity, so different from the manner of the ordinary
under officers.

When the long day's labou