ting had flustered him. He was so eager to do his share of the work
that he overdid it, and upset the canoe, throwing the half-breed and
himself into the water.

Now there was nothing of the hero in Cross-Eye. He was both angry with
Hector for his awkwardness, and alarmed about his own safety. So,
without one thought of the boy, he made for the shore as fast as he
could, in spite of Mr. Macrae's indignant appeals to him to help Hector.

As for the latter, he had not been born and bred beside a Scottish loch
without learning to swim. Indeed, neither Dour nor Dandy could get
faster through the water. But the ice-cold lake into which he had been
so suddenly plunged was a different thing from the sunny loch in
summer-time.

Before he had taken a dozen strokes towards the shore, the deadly chill
laid hold upon him, and numbed his arms and legs until he could scarce
keep his head above water. Indeed it did go under once, the water
smothering the cry for help that his peril had wrung from him, ere his
father, throwing off his coat, plunged in to his rescue.

CHAPTER IV

Hector Entrapped

Before Mr. Macrae had reached Hector, he, too, felt the paralysing
effect of the glacial water. But he was a man of enormous strength,
and, wallowing through it like a whale, grasped the boy firmly with his
left hand, while he struck out for the canoe, which rocked upon the
water in supreme indifference to their struggles for life.

'Keep up, laddie, keep up,' he panted. 'I'll get ye safe ashore.'
Reaching the canoe, he drew down the side until Hector could seize it
with his stiffening hands. 'Noo, then, laddie, ye'll just haud on
there, and I'll push the thing to the land.'

Hector held on with the strength that his terror gave him, and Mr.
Macrae, grasping the canoe at the other side, pushed it through the
water with all his might.

In this fashion they made the shore, where Cross-Eye stood shivering
and glowering at them. Mr. Macrae's first impulse was to warm his skin
pretty thoroughly for his cowardly desertion of the boy. But before
his hand fell, he checked himself, saying: 'Ye feckless loon!--ye ken
nae better, nae doubt. Yer only thought was for yer ainsel'. Well,
we'll say nae mair. Come, let's make a fire and dry our things.'

The half-breed, who had evidently expected some rough usage, looked
immensely relieved at the quick turn of affairs, and set himself to the
building of a big blaze, with such sk