yards from the bank. There were two men
in it now, and Ruth saw at first glance that Wonota, likewise bound and
gagged, lay propped up against the small over-decked part of the launch.

The Indian chief halted not even to kick off his moccasins. He ran to the
edge of the bank and, the water being deep, dived on a long slant into
the river. He rose almost instantly to the surface, and with a long,
swift side-stroke followed after the motor craft, which was now gaining
speed.

CHAPTER VII

EXPEDIENCY

Up in the Big North Woods Ruth Fielding had seen loons dive and swim (and
of all the feathered tribe, loons are the master divers) and she had
wondered at the birds' mastery of the water. But no loon ever seemed more
at home in that element than did the Indian chief.

Totantora tore through the water after the escaping motor-boat as though
he, too, were propelled by a motor. And his motor was more powerful, in a
short race at least, than that driving the launch in which Wonota was
held prisoner.

Before the men who had abducted the Osage maiden could get their boat out
of the little cove, Totantora reached the stern of it. He rose breast
high in the water and clutched the gunwale with one hand. One of the men
swung at him with a boathook; but the other picked up his canvas coat and
managed to smother the chief's head and face in it for a minute.

Totantora flung himself backward and dragged the canvas coat out of the
man's hand. Indeed, he came near to dragging the man himself into the
water.

The coat did not retard the Indian much. He grabbed it with both hands,
spread it abroad, and then plunged with it under the stern of the
motor-boat. At once the propeller ceased turning and the boat lost
headway. Totantora had fouled the propeller blades with the canvas
jacket, and the abductors could not get away.

The Indian lunged for the gunwale of the boat again. One of the men was
now attending to the mechanism. The other beat at Totantora's hands with
the boathook.

In a flash the chief let go of the rail with one hand and seized the
staff of the implement. One powerful jerk, and he wrenched the boathook
from the white man's grasp. The latter fell sprawling into the bottom of
the boat. With a display of muscle-power at which Ruth could not but
marvel, Totantora raised himself over the gunwale of the boat and
scrambled into it.

The second white man turned on him, but the Indian met him stooping,
seized hi