friends. If there is a good reason why we
shouldn't go down the river let them speak it plainly. But this talk of
danger and magic simply makes white men laugh."

Mary dutifully took her way down to the tepees. She returned in time to
get supper--but threw no further light on the mystery.

"What about it, Mary?" asked Stonor.

"Don't go down the river," she said earnestly. "Plenty bad trip, I
think. I 'fraid for her. She can't paddle a canoe in the rapids nor
track up-stream. What if we capsize and lose our grub? Don't go!"

"Didn't the Kakisas give you any better reasons than that?"

Mary was doggedly silent.

"Ah, have they won you away from us too?"

This touched the red woman. Her face worked painfully. She did her best
to explain. "Kakisas my people," she said. "Maybe you think they foolish
people. All right. Maybe they are not a wise and strong people like the
old days. But they my people just the same. I can't tell white men their
things."

"She's right," put in Clare quickly. "Don't ask her any more."

"Well, what do you think?" he asked. "Do you not wish to go any
further?"

"Yes! Yes!" she cried. "I must go on!"

"Very good," he said grimly. "We'll start to-morrow."

"I not go," said Mary stolidly. "My people mad at me if I go."

Here was a difficulty! Stonor and Clare looked at each other blankly.

"What the devil----!" began the policeman.

"Hush! leave her to me," said Clare, urging him out of the shack.

By and by she rejoined him outside. "She'll come," she said briefly.

"What magic did you use?"

"No magic. Just woman talk."

CHAPTER VII

ON THE RIVER

Next morning they saw the dug-out pulled up on the shore below their
camp.

"The difference between a red man and a white man," said Stonor grimly,
"is that a red man doesn't mind being caught in a lie after the occasion
for it has passed, but a white man will spend half the rest of his life
trying to justify himself."

He regarded the craft dubiously. It was an antique affair, grey as an
old badger, warped and seamed by the sun and rotten in the bottom. But
it had a thin skin of sound wood on the outside, and on the whole it
seemed better suited to their purpose than the bark-canoes used by the
Kakisas.

As they carried their goods down and made ready to start the Indians
gathered around and watched with glum faces. None offered to help. It
must have been a trying situation for Mary Moosa. When Stonor was out of
h