nemy was in advance of them--that, anticipating some such
attempt at escape, they had stationed an ambush at the narrows to cut
off their retreat.

Archie was naturally the first to make this discovery, being in the bow
of the canoe. He heard no sound, but suddenly there loomed out of the
darkness another canoe close to them--so close that they were on the
point of running into it when the sharp-witted boy saw it, and, with an
adroit turn of his paddle prevented a collision. Then he ceased to
paddle, and held his breath. Not knowing what to do next he wisely did
nothing, but left matters to Oke and fate!

As they passed, the steersman in the strange canoe uttered something in
a low tone. Evidently he mistook them for his friends.

"Sh!" was Okematan's prompt reply--or the Indian equivalent for that
caution.

They glided silently and slowly past, but the suspicion of the strange
Indian had obviously been aroused, for the paddles of his canoe were
heard to gurgle powerfully. Hearing this, Okematan made a stroke that
sent his canoe ahead like an arrow, and Archie, who appreciated the
situation, seconded the movement.

"Stop!" exclaimed the strange Indian, in the Saulteaux tongue, but the
Cree chief did not feel the duty of obedience strongly upon him just
then. On the contrary, he put forth all his strength, but quietly, for
he remembered that Dan Davidson was behind.

As there was now no need for concealment, the pursuer uttered a shrill
war-whoop which was immediately answered and repeated until the woods
rang with the fiendish sound, while half-a-dozen canoes dashed out from
the banks on either side, and sought to bar the river.

"Now, Arch-ee," said the Cree chief in a low voice, "paddle for your
life and be a man!"

"I'll be two men, if you like, Oke," answered the boy, whose courage was
of that type which experiences something almost like desperate glee in
the presence of imminent danger.

The canoe, obedient to the double impulse and the power of the current,
was soon out of hearing of the pursuers.

"O! if I only had a paddle I might help you," said Little Bill eagerly.

"Yes, an' bu'st your biler, or explode your lungs, or something o' that
sort," said his brother. "No, no, Little Bill; you sit there like a
lord or an admiral, an' leave men like Oke an' me to do all the dirty
work."

While he spoke thus flippantly it is but justice to say that Archie was
never more anxiously in earnest in his