hough they still observed the precaution of speaking in the lowest of
tones.

"Take a rest, Bullen," said Donald, breaking the enforced silence.
"You must be pretty well exhausted with this work coming on top of what
you've done all day, and it is no longer necessary for us to travel at
full speed."

"I am about used up, that's a fact," admitted the little man, laying in
his paddle and stretching himself wearily in the bottom of the canoe.

"I don't wonder. But I say I how like a trump you bowled that fellow
over, on the beach. I was just wondering how we could down him without
giving him a chance to alarm the camp, when all at once you had the job
done. How did you happen to think of it?"

"I hadn't been thinking of anything else from the first," replied the
paymaster, "and I knew your thoughts were running in the same
direction, for I noticed the glances exchanged between you and
Christie. Poor fellow! I wonder what will become of him."

"Yes. The dear old chap is in the worst of it now," sighed Donald.
"We can only hope he'll be held for ransom or exchange. How I wish he
were with us, not only for his own sake, but for the aid he could
afford in the task we have undertaken."

"What task?"

"The rescue of my sister and Madam Rothsay, of course."

"You don't mean that you propose, unarmed and unaided, to attempt
anything so hopeless as that?"

"Certainly I do. And that is what we are going to the island for. You
wouldn't leave them in captivity, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't do that; but I would wait in hiding somewhere for the
arrival of the reinforcements that must surely be coming up the lake by
this time."

"And so give the Indians ample opportunity for removing their captives
to some remote and inaccessible place, which I only hope they have not
done already. No, indeed, that would never do. We must act promptly,
and before those chaps on the island have a suspicion of our coming."

"But there are at least a dozen of them, and all are well armed."

"If there were twice as many I should still make the attempt to rescue
my sister from their hands. Just imagine the distress she must be
suffering all this time, uncertain as to her ultimate fate, dreading
the worst, and hoping against hope, that some one will come to her
assistance. Poor child! the suspense must be terrible."

"Yes," sighed Bullen. "And poor Madam Rothsay, too, plunged from the
height of civilization into the depths of sav