here
the mysterious canoe had vanished, none could tell.

Days upon days, they travelled with incredible labour, now portaging
over a stubborn country, now, placing their lives in hazard as they shot
down untravelled rapids.

One day on the Black Wing River a canoe was torn open and its three
occupants were thrown into the rapids. Two of them were expert swimmers
and were able to catch the stern of another canoe as it ran by, and
reached safe water, bruised but alive. The third was a boy, Maurice
Joval, the youngest of the party, whom Iberville had been at first loth
to bring with him. But he had remembered his own ambitious youth,
and had consented, persuading De Troyes that the lad was worth
encouragement. His canoe was not far behind when the other ran on the
rocks. He saw the lad struggle bravely and strike out, but a cross
current caught him and carried him towards the steep shore. There he was
thrown against a rock. His strength seemed to fail, but he grasped the
rock. It was scraggy, and though it tore and bruised him he clung to it.

Iberville threw off his doublet, and prepared to spring as his boat
came down. But another had made ready. It was the abbe, with his
cassock gone, and his huge form showing finely. He laid his hand upon
Iberville's arm. "Stay here," he said, "I go; I am the stronger."

But Iberville, as cries of warning and appeal rang out around him,
the drowning lad had not cried out at all,--sprang into the water. Not
alone. The abbe looked around him, made the sacred gesture, and then
sprang also into an eddy a distance below, and at an angle made his
way up towards the two. Priest though he was, he was also an expert
river-man, and his vast strength served him royally. He saw Iberville
tossed here and there, but with impossible strength and good fortune
reach the lad. The two grasped each other and then struck out for the
high shore. De Casson seemed to know what would happen. He altered his
course, and, making for the shore also at a point below, reached it. He
saw with a kind of despair that it was steep and had no trees; yet his
keen eyes also saw, not far below, the dwarfed bole of a tree jutting
out from the rock. There lay the chance. Below this was a great turmoil
of rapids. A prayer mechanically passed the priest's lips, though his
thoughts were those of a warrior then. He almost enjoyed the danger for
himself: his fear was for Iberville and for the motherless boy.

He had guessed