ome especial object
in doing so, and they made the night so dark that the red eyes of the
canoe, great in size though they were, could see but a little way down
the stream. Yet it kept on boldly and there was a purpose in its course.
Often it seemed to be on the point of recklessly running against the
rocky shore, but always it sheered off in time, and though its advance
was apparently casual it was moving down the stream at a great rate.

The canoe had gone fully four hundred yards when an Abenaki warrior on
the far side of the river caught a glimpse of a shadow moving in the
shadow of the bank, and a sustained gaze soon showed to him that it was
a canoe, and, in his opinion, a derelict, washed by the flood from some
camp a long distance up the stream. He watched it for a little while,
and was then confirmed in his opinion by its motion as it floated lazily
with the current.

The darkness was not too great to keep the Abenaki from seeing that it
was a good canoe, a fine shell of Iroquois make, and canoes were
valuable. He had not been able to secure any scalp, which was a sad
disappointment, and now Manitou had sent this stray craft to him as a
consolation prize. He was not one to decline the gifts of the gods, and
he ran along the edge of the cliff until he came to a low point well
ahead of the canoe. Then he put his rifle on the ground, dropped lightly
into the stream, and swam with swift sure strokes for the derelict.

As the warrior approached he saw that his opinion of the canoe was more
than justified. It had been made with uncommon skill and he admired its
strong, graceful lines. It was not often that such a valuable prize came
to a man and asked to be taken. He reached it and put one hand upon the
side. Then a heavy fist stretched entirely over the canoe and struck him
such a mighty blow upon the jaw that he sank senseless, and when he
revived two minutes later on a low bank where the current had cast him,
he did not know what had happened to him.

Meanwhile the uncaptured canoe sailed on in lonely majesty down the
stream.

"That was a shrewd blow of yours, Dave," said Robert. "You struck fairly
upon his jaw bone."

"It's not often that I fight an Indian with my fists, and the chance
having come I made the most of it," said the hunter. "He may have been a
sentinel set to watch for just such an attempt as we are making, but
it's likely they thought if we made a dash for it we'd be in the canoe."

"It was