rock's got its chance at the canoe. But, my
gracious, she is goin' to ride 'em!"

Jowett, the horse-dealer, had a sportsman's joy in a daring thing.

"See, old Injun Tekewani's after her! He's calling at her from the bank.
He knows. He done it himself years ago when there was rips in the tribe
an' he had to sew up the tears. He run them Rapids in his canoe--"

"Just as the Druse girl there is doin'--"

"An' he's done what he liked with the Blackfeet ever since."

"But she ain't a chief--what's the use of her doin' it? She's goin'
straight for them. She can't turn back now. She couldn't make the bank
if she wanted to. She's got to run 'em. Holy smoke, see her wavin' the
paddle at Tekewani! Osterhaut, she's the limit, that petticoat--so quiet
and shy and don't-look-at-me, too, with eyes like brown diamonds."

"Oh, get out, Jowett; she's all right! She'll make this country sit up
some day-by gorry, she'll make Manitou and Lebanon sit up to-day if she
runs the Carillon Rapids safe!"

"She's runnin' 'em all right, son. She's--by jee, well done, Miss Druse!
Well done, I say--well done!" exclaimed Jowett, dancing about and waving
his arms towards the adventurous girl.

The girl had reached the angry, thrashing waters where the rocks rent
and tore into white ribbons the onrushing current, and her first trial
had come on the instant the spitting, raging panthers of foam struck the
bow of her canoe. The waters were so low that this course, which she
had made once before with her friend Tekewani the Blackfeet chief,
had perils not met on that desperate journey. Her canoe struck a rock
slantwise, shuddered and swung round, but by a dexterous stroke she
freed the frail craft. It righted and plunged forward again into fresh
death-traps.

It was these new dangers which had made Tekewani try to warn her from
the shore--he and the dozen braves with him: but it was characteristic
of his race that, after the first warning, when she must play out the
game to the bitter end, he made no further attempt to stop her. The
Indians ran down the river-bank, however, with eyes intent on her
headlong progress, grunting approval as she plunged safely from danger
to danger.

Osterhaut and Jowett became silent, too, and, like the Indians, ran
as fast as they could, over fences, through the trees, stumbling and
occasionally cursing, but watching with fascinated eyes this adventuress
of the North, taking chances which not one coureur-de-bois