ispatched
his own life. Whatever they were doing to her, there in that ring of
firelight, might be stayed for a moment, at least.

But at that instant he remembered the canoe. He had always kept it
hidden in a little thicket of tall reeds,--if only the girl had not
removed it from its place in his weeks of sickness! He plunged down into
the tall tules. Yes, the boat was still in place.

It took all the strength of his weakened body to push it out from the
reeds into the water. Then he seized the long pole they had sometimes
used to propel themselves over the lake. Except for his injured arm,
the paddle would have been better--he could have made better time and
escaped the danger of being stranded in deep water--but he doubted that
he could handle it with his faltering arm. He pushed off, putting most
of the strain on his uninjured right arm.

The canoe was strongly but lightly made, so that it could be portaged
with greatest possible ease; and his strokes, though feeble, propelled
it slowly through the water. The great, white full moon, beloved of long
ago, looked down from above the tall, dark heads of the spruce and
changed the little water-body into a miracle of burnished silver. In its
light Ben's face showed pale, but with a curious, calm strength.

The lake seemed untouched by the faint breath of wind that blew from the
distant shore. The waters lay quiet, and the trout beneath saw the black
shadow of the canoe as it passed. A cow moose and her calf sprang up the
bank with a splash, frightened by the poling figure in the stern. And on
the far shore, clear where the lake had its outlet in a small river,
even more keen wilderness eyes might have beheld the black, moving dot
that was the craft. But the distance was too far and the wind was wrong
for the keen mind behind the eyes to make any sort of an interpretation.

It might have been that Fenris the wolf, running with a female and two
younger males that he had mastered that long-ago night on the ridge,
paused in his hunting to watch and wonder. But his wild brute thoughts
were not under the bondage of memory to-night; his savage heart was
thrilled and full; and more than likely he did not even turn his head.

Ray and Chan, standing beside their prisoner in their grisly camp on the
opposite shore, might have beheld Ben's approach if weightier matters
had not occupied their minds. They had only to walk to the edge of the
firelight and stare down through a rift