manifested in all the fugitives, even the imperturbable
Indian being more than usually watchful. His eyes scarcely ever left
the black gap where the river slid round the turn above. Soon, as on the
preceding day, he disappeared up the ragged, iron-bound shore. There was
scarcely an attempt at conversation. A controlling thought bound that
group into silence--if Joe Lake was ever going to come he would come
to-day.

Shefford asked himself a hundred times if it were possible, and his
answer seemed to be in the low, sullen, muffled roar of the river. And
as the morning wore on toward noon his dread deepened until all chance
appeared hopeless. Already he had begun to have vague and unformed
and disquieting ideas of the only avenue of escape left--to return up
Nonnezoshe Boco--and that would be to enter a trap.

Suddenly a piercing cry pealed down the canyon. It was followed by
echoes, weird and strange, that clapped from wall to wall in mocking
concatenation. Nas Ta Bega appeared high on the ragged slope. The cry
had been the Indian's. He swept an arm out, pointing up-stream, and
stood like a statue on the iron rocks.

Shefford's keen gaze sighted a moving something in the bend of the
river. It was long, low, dark, and flat, with a lighter object upright
in the middle. A boat and a man!

"Joe! It's Joe!" yelled Shefford, madly. "There!... Look!"

Jane and Fay were on their knees in the sand, clasping each other, pale
faces toward that bend in the river.

Shefford ran up the shore toward the Indian. He climbed the jutting
slant of rock. The boat was now full in the turn--it moved faster--it
was nearing the smooth incline above the rapid. There! it glided
down--heaved darkly up--settled back--and disappeared in the frothy,
muddy roughness of water. Shefford held his breath and watched. A dark,
bobbing object showed, vanished, showed again to enlarge--to take the
shape of a big flatboat--and then it rode the swift, choppy current out
of the lower end of the rapid.

Nas Ta Bega began to make violent motions, and Shefford, taking his cue,
frantically waved his red scarf. There was a five-mile-an-hour current
right before them, and Joe must needs see them so that he might sheer
the huge and clumsy craft into the shore before it drifted too far down.

Presently Joe did see them. He appeared to be half-naked; he raised
aloft both arms, and bellowed down the canyon. The echoes boomed from
wall to wall, every one stronger wi