picions as long as possible.

"I've got the landing picked out," he told her as they started off.
"I've been all over the river this morning. It is quite a way
down--around the bend--but it's perfectly safe. So don't be afraid."

"I'm not afraid--with you. And how fast you paddle!"

It was true: in all her days by rivers she had never seen such perfect
control of a canoe. He paddled as if without effort, but the streaming
shore line showed that the boat moved at an astonishing rate. He was a
master canoeist, and whatever fears she might have had vanished at once.

She talked gayly to him, scarcely aware that they were heading across
and down the stream.

When her father had appeared on the bank, calling, she had not been in
the least alarmed. Ben's gay shouts kept her from understanding exactly
what he was saying. And when the old man had drawn his pistol and fired,
and the bullet had splashed in the water some twenty yards toward shore,
her mind had refused to accept the evidence of her senses.

The second shot followed the first, and the third the second, resulting
in, for her part, only the impotence of bewilderment. Her first thought
was that her father's fierce temper, long known to her, had engulfed him
in murderous rage. Trusting Ben wholly, the real truth did not occur to
her.

She screamed shrilly at the fourth shot; and Ben looked up to find her
pale as the foam from his flashing paddle. "Turn around and go back,"
she cried to Ben. "He'll kill you if you don't! Oh, please--turn
around--"

"And get in range of him so he _can_ kill me?" Ben replied savagely.
"Can't you see he's shooting at me?"

"Then throw up your hands--it's all some dreadful mistake. Can't you
hear me--turn and go back."

The fifth and sixth shots were fired by now; and Neilson had gone to his
cabin for his rifle. Ben smiled grimly into her white face.

"We'd better keep on going to our landing place," he advised. "There's
no place to land above it--I went all over the shore this morning. That
will give him time to cool down. I only want to get around this curve
before he comes with his rifle."

She stared at him aghast, too confused and terrified to make rational
answer. He was pale, too; but she had a swift feeling that the cold,
rugged face was in some way exultant, too. The first chill of fear of
him brushed her like a cold wind.

But they were around the bend by now, and Ben's breath caught as if in a
triumphant gasp. Alr