deuce of
a fix."

She made no reply. The lesson of the experience was not lost on her,
but she was not going to tell him so.

In a short time they reached camp. Roaring Bill had tarried long
enough to unpack. The horses grazed on picket. It was borne in upon
her that short of actually meeting other people her only recourse lay
in sticking to Bill Wagstaff, whether she liked it or not. To strike
out alone was courting self-destruction. And she began to understand
why Roaring Bill made no effort to watch or restrain her. He knew the
grim power of the wilderness. It was his best ally in what he had set
out to do.

Within forty-eight hours the stream they followed merged itself in
another, both wide and deep, which flowed west through a level-bottomed
valley three miles or more in width. Westward the land spread out in a
continuous roll, marked here and there with jutting ridges and isolated
peaks; but on the east a chain of rugged mountains marked the horizon
as far as she could see.

Roaring Bill halted on the river brink and stripped his horses clean,
though it was but two in the afternoon and their midday fire less than
an hour extinguished. She watched him curiously. When his packs were
off he beckoned her.

"Hold them a minute," he said, and put the lead ropes in her hand.

Then he went up the bank into a thicket of saskatoons. Out of this he
presently emerged, bearing on his shoulders a canoe, old and
weather-beaten, but stanch, for it rode light as a feather on the
stream. Bill seated himself in the canoe, holding to Silk's lead rope.
The other two he left free.

"Now," he directed, "when I start across, you drive Nigger and Satin in
if they show signs of hanging back. Bounce a rock or two off them if
they lag."

Her task was an easy one, for Satin and Nigger followed Silk
unhesitatingly. The river lapped along the sleek sides of them for
fifty yards. Then they dropped suddenly into swimming water, and the
current swept them downstream slantwise for the opposite shore, only
their heads showing above the surface. Hazel wondered what river it
might be. It was a good quarter of a mile wide, and swift.

Roaring Bill did not trouble to enlighten her as to the locality. When
he got back he stowed the saddle and pack equipment in the canoe.

"All aboard for the north side," he said boyishly. And Hazel climbed
obediently amidships.

On the farther side, Bill emptied the canoe, and stowed i