ion: "MAN OVERBOARD!" AN INDIAN CANOE TO THE RESCUE.]

What happened after this I have from an eye-witness, who rushed back
with others at the cry, "Man overboard!" and joined in a reckless
throwing over of chairs, boxes, and life-preservers that profited
little, for the man was left far behind by the steamboat, which could
do nothing--and Ouillette could do nothing--but whistle a hoarse
danger-warning and go its way. A magnificent swimmer he must have been,
this rudely awakened tourist, for the passengers, crowded astern, could
follow the black speck that was his head bobbing along steadily,
undisturbed, one would say, by dangers, apparently going up-stream as
the steamboat gained on him--really coming down-stream with the full
force of the current, and yielding to it entirely, all strength saved
for steering. Not a man on the boat believed that the swimmer would come
out alive, and, helpless to save, they stood there in sickening
fascination, watching him sweep down to his death.

Then suddenly rang out a cry: "Look! There! A canoe!" And out from the
shadows and shallows off-shore shot a slender prow with a figure in bow
and stern. The Indians were coming to the rescue! They must have started
even as the man fell,--such a thing it is to be an Indian!--and, with a
knowledge of the rapids that is theirs alone, they had aimed the swift
craft in a long slant that would let them overtake the swimmer just
here, at this very place where now they were about to overtake him, at
this very place where presently they did overtake him and draw him up,
all but exhausted, from as close to the brink of the Great Rapids as
ever he will get until he passes over them. Then they paddled back.

IV

WHAT CANADIAN PILOTS DID IN THE CATARACTS OF THE NILE

AND now suppose we follow these Indians to their reservation at
Caughnawaga, where the government has given them land and civic rights
and encouragement to peaceful ways. The surest time of year to find the
pilots at home is the winter season; for then, with navigation frozen
up, they have weeks to spend drifting along in the sleepy village life,
waiting for the spring. There, in many a hearth-fire circle,--only,
alas! the hearth is a commonplace shiny stove more often than not,--we
may listen to tales without end of rapids and river, while the men smoke
solemnly, and the women do beadwork and moccasins for the next year's
peddling. We may hear "Big Baptiste" tell for what explo