e river against its bank. Slosson yawned
prodigiously.

"I reckon you ain't needing me?" he said.

"Better go up in the bow and get some sleep," advised Carrington, and
Slosson, nothing loath, clambered down from the roof of the cabin and
stumbled forward.

The ceaseless murmur of the rushing waters grew in the stillness as the
keel boat drew nearer the hurrying yellow flood, and the beat of the
Kentuckian's pulse quickened. Would he find the raft there? He glanced
back over the way they had come. The dark ranks of the forest walled off
the clearing, but across the water a dim point of light was visible. He
fixed its position as somewhere near the head of the bayou. Apparently
it was a lantern, but as he looked a ruddy glow crept up against the
sky-line.

From the bow Bunker had been observing this singular phenomenon.
Suddenly he bent and roused Slosson, who had fallen asleep. The
tavern-keeper sprang to his feet and Bunker pointed without speaking.

"Mebby you can tell me what that light back yonder means?" cried
Slosson, addressing himself to Carrington; as he spoke he snatched up
his rifle.

"That's what I'm trying to make out," answered Carrington.

"Hell!" cried Slosson, and tossed his gun to his shoulder.

What seemed to be a breath of wind lifted a stray lock of Carrington's
hair, but his pistol answered Slosson in the same second. He fired at
the huddle of men in the bow of the boat and one of them pitched forward
with his arms outspread.

"Keep back, you!" he said, and dropped off the cabin roof.

His promptness had bred a momentary panic, then Slosson's bull-like
voice began to roar commands; but in that brief instant of surprise and
shock Carrington had found and withdrawn the wooden peg that fastened
the cabin door. He had scarcely done this when Slosson came tramping aft
supported by the three men.

Calling to Betty and Hannibal to escape in the skiff which was towing
astern the Kentuckian rushed toward the bow. At his back he heard the
door creak on its hinges as it was pushed open by Betty and the boy, and
again he called to them to escape by the skiff. The fret of the current
had grown steadily and from beneath the wide-flung branches of the
trees which here met above his head, Carrington caught sight of the
starspecked arch of the heavens beyond. They were issuing from the
bayou. He felt the river snatch at the keel boat, the buffeting of some
swift eddy, and saw the blunt bow swing off t