le, with, our
muskets ready for immediate use. The women came next, and then the
canoe; we had put the luggage into it, and the voyageurs did not grumble
at the extra load.

Less than a mile remained to be covered, and I was alert for attack with
every foot of the way. But no Indian yells or musket-shots broke the
stillness of the forest, and I was heartily glad when we emerged on the
bank of the Churchill. Only twenty miles down stream to Fort Royal! No
further thoughts of danger troubled us. Swiftly we embarked, and swung
out on the rushing blue tide.

After the first five miles the scene changed a little. The river
narrowed, and grew more swift. The hills receded right and left, and a
strip of dense forest fringed the banks on either hand. A dull roar in
the distance warned us that we were approaching well-known and dangerous
falls, where it would be necessary to land and make a brief portage
through the woods.

Closer and closer we swept, and louder and louder rang the thunder of
the rapids. The voyageurs began to make in a little toward the left
shore, and just then a musket cracked shrilly from the forest on that
side. Gardapie, who was immediately in front of me, dropped his paddle,
and leaped convulsively to his feet He clutched at his bleeding throat,
gave a gurgling cry of agony, and pitched head first out of the canoe,
nearly upsetting it as he slid off the gunwale.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE AMBUSCADE.

The attack was so sudden and unlooked for, and took us at such a
disadvantage, that it was a mercy the half of us were not killed by the
enemy's first straggling volley. For on the instant that Gardapie fell
dead into the river two more shots rang out, and then a third and a
fourth. A bullet whistled by my ear, and another flew so close to
Baptiste that he dropped his paddle and threw himself flat, uttering a
shrill "_Nom de Dieu!_" The women screamed, and Lavigne cried out
with a curse that he had a ball in his right arm.

"Redskins!" I yelled. "Down--down for your lives!"

The canoe was luckily of a good depth, and we all crouched low and
hugged the bottom. The firing had ceased as abruptly as it opened. Not a
shot or a yell disturbed the quiet of the woods on either hand, and but
for poor Gardapie's vacant place, and the splash of blood where he had
been kneeling, I might have thought that the whole thing was a hideous
dream. We drifted o