marvellous quickness, ducked loose
from the tump-line. The pack bounded down the slant, fell with a splash,
and was whirled away. With the impetus of the same motion the young man
twisted himself as violently as possible to regain his footing. He would
probably have succeeded had it not been for the Indian girl. She had
been following the two, a few steps in the rear. As Dick's foot turned,
she slipped her own pack and sprang forward, reaching out her arm in the
hope of steadying him. Unfortunately she did this only in time to get in
the way of the strong twist Dick made for recovery. The young man
tottered for an instant on the very brink of saving himself, then gave
it up, and fell as loosely as possible into the current.

May-may-gwan, aghast at what she had done, stood paralyzed, staring into
the gorge. Sam swung the canoe from his shoulders and ran on over the
hill and down the other side.

The Indian girl saw the inert body of the woodsman dashed down through
the moil and water, now showing an arm, now a leg, only once, for a
single instant, the head. Twice it hit obstacles, limp as a sack of
flour. Then it disappeared.

Immediately she regained the use of her legs, and scrambled over the
hill after Sam, her breath strangling her. She found below the rapids a
pool, and half in the water at its edge Dick seated, bruised and cut,
spitting water, and talking excitedly to his companion. Instantly she
understood. The young woods runner, with the rare quickness of expedient
peculiar to these people, had allowed himself to be carried through the
rapids muscle-loose, as an inanimate object would be carried, without an
attempt to help himself in any way. It was a desperate chance, but it
was the only chance. The slightest stiffening of the muscles, the least
struggle would have thrown him out of the water's natural channel
against the bowlders; and then a rigidly held body would have offered
only too good a resistance to the shock. By a miracle of fortune he had
been carried through, bruised and injured, to be sure, but conscious.
Sam had dragged him to the bush-grown bank. There he sat up in the water
and cleared his lungs. He was wildly excited.

"She did it!" he burst Out, as soon as he could speak. "She did it a
purpose! She reached out and pushed me! By God, there she is now!"

With the instinct of the hunter he had managed to cling to his rifle. He
wrenched at the magazine lever, throwing the muzzle forward for