k speed.

But was she sure--had she seen aught, she asked herself, tremulously.
For it had been a day of dreams--it had been a day of dreams! And the
confluence of the Tellico River with the Tennessee might be so
hopelessly near!

The progress of both boats was very slow now, upstream against the
current and the debris of the storm; even the crew of Indian braves
needed to pull with vigor to make the clear water again. When this was
reached they rested motionless, the duplication of the pettiaugre and
the feather headdress of the Cherokees as clearly pictured in the
bright, still reaches of the river as above in the medium of the air
between sunset and dusk.

They were all looking back, all commenting on Hamish's slow progress. He
had the current and his exhaustion both against him, and the most
earnest and well-equipped postulant of culture would hardly be eager to
go to an examination in the French language when his life was to be the
forfeit of failure. The sound of the river was loud on the evening air;
a wind was astir on either bank,--a pillaging force, rifling the forest
of the few leaves it might still treasure; now and then a scurrying
cloud of them fled before the blast against the sky; the evening had
grown chill; the boy felt its dank depression in every nerve despite the
drops of perspiration that stood upon his brow as he too paddled into
the clear water. He held the boat stationary by a great effort.

He had come to the end. He could strive no more. He saw Savanukah rise
up in the pettiaugre, looking toward him. The next moment the savage
turned his head. There was an alien sound upon the air, so close at hand
that despite the fret and turmoil of the water, the blare of the wild
wind, the tumultuous clashing together of the bare boughs in the black
forest, it arrested the attention. Once more it asserted itself against
the tumult, and then Hamish, his head spinning around until he thought
that the canoe had broken loose from his mechanical plying of the
paddle, recognized the regular rhythmical dash of oars.

CHAPTER III

In the next instant from beyond a curve in the river a boat shot into
the current,--a large row-boat, manned by twelve red-coated soldiers,
bending to the oars, whose steady strokes sent the craft down the stream
with the speed, it seemed, of a meteor.

They were alongside and a non-commissioned officer was in diplomatic
converse with Willinawaugh before Hamish had regain