uld
turn the canoe eastward again and take what fate might bring them at
Quebec. But ever with the daybreak there came the thought of the
humiliation, the dreary homeward voyage, the separation which would
await them in galley and dungeon, to turn him from his purpose.

On the seventh day they rested at a point but a few miles from the mouth
of the Richelieu River, where a large blockhouse, Fort Richelieu, had
been built by M. de Saurel. Once past this they had no great distance
to go to reach the seigneury of De Catinat's friend of the _noblesse_
who would help them upon their way. They had spent the night upon a
little island in midstream, and at early dawn they were about to thrust
the canoe out again from the sand-lined cove in which she lay, when
Ephraim Savage growled in his throat and pointed Out across the water.

A large canoe was coming up the river, flying along as quick as a dozen
arms could drive it. In the stern sat a dark figure which bent forward
with every swing of the paddles, as though consumed by eagerness to push
onwards. Even at that distance there was no mistaking it. It was the
fanatical monk whom they had left behind them.

Concealed among the brushwood, they watched their pursuers fly past and
vanish round a curve in the stream. Then they looked at one another in
perplexity.

"We'd have done better either to put him overboard or to take him as
ballast," said Ephraim. "He's hull down in front of us now, and drawing
full."

"Well, we can't take the back track anyhow," remarked Amos.

"And yet how can we go on?" said De Catinat despondently. "This
vindictive devil will give word at the fort and at every other point
along the river. He has been back to Quebec. It is one of the
governor's own canoes, and goes three paces to our two."

"Let me cipher it out." Amos Green sat on a fallen maple with his head
sunk upon his hands. "Well," said he presently, "if it's no good going
on, and no good going back, there's only one way, and that is to go to
one side. That's so, Ephraim, is it not?"

"Ay, ay, lad, if you can't run you must tack, but it seems shoal water
on either bow."

"We can't go to the north, so it follows that we must go to the south."

"Leave the canoe?"

"It's our only chance. We can cut through the woods and come out near
this friendly house on the Richelieu. The friar will lose our trail
then, and we'll have no more trouble with him, if he stays on the St.
La