"She had just come to a terrific whoop in the war-song when she slipped
off her branch and the whoop increased to a death-yell as she went
crashing headlong through the branches and down into the stream at the
foot of the precipice.

"Water! water!" exclaimed La Certe at this point, holding out both
hands. "I can never pass this part of my story without burning thirst!"

A mug of water was handed him.

"Poor fellow--have some brandy in it," said a sympathetic hearer,
hastily getting out his bottle.

La Certe held out his mug impatiently for the brandy, drained the mug,
and cleared his voice.

"Was--was your mother killed?" asked the sympathiser, earnestly.

"Killed? No. Impossible! My mother could not be killed because her
destiny was not yet fulfilled. No: there was a deep pool right under
the tree. She fell into that with a plunge that echoed from cliff to
cliff. The Indians were profoundly superstitious. All Indians are not
so, but these Indians were. They waited not for more. They turned and
fled as if all the evil spirits in the Rocky Mountains were chasing
them. They reached their wigwams breathless, and told their squaws that
one of the spirits of a mountain stream had sat among the branches of a
tree and sung to them. It had told them that the right time for
attacking their foes had not yet come. Then it sang them a war-song
descriptive of their final victory, and, just after uttering a
tremendous war-whoop, it had dived back into its native stream."

"Well done!" exclaimed an enthusiastic Canadian.

"But what became of your mother?" asked Morel.

"Oh! she swam ashore. My mother was a splendid swimmer. I know it, for
she taught me."

"Was it a long swim?" asked a sceptical sailor, who was one of the
emigrants.

"How?--what mean you?" demanded La Certe, sternly.

"I only want to know if she took long to swim ashore out o' that pool,"
said the sceptic, simply.

La Certe cast on him a glance of suspicion, and replied that his mother
had found no difficulty in getting out of the pool.

"Is the old lady alive yet?" asked the pertinacious sceptic.

"Of course not. She died long long ago--thirty years ago."

"What! before you was born? That's strange, isn't it?"

"No, but you not understand. I suppose my speech is not plain to you.
I said _three_ years ago."

"Ah! that's more like it. I only missed what you said," returned the
sceptic, whose name was Fred Jenkins, "for I've live