ad
down the stream, it would float to the spot where the swans were.

In a short while they approached very near the great birds, and our
hunters could see them sitting on the water, with upraised necks, gazing
in wonder at the torch. Whether they sounded their strange note was not
known, for the "sough" of the waterfall still echoed in the ears of the
canoe-men, and they could not hear aught else.

Basil and Norman fired first, and simultaneously; but the louder
detonations of Francois' double-barrel, and even the tiny crack of
Lucien's rifle, were heard almost the instant after. Three of the birds
were killed by the volley, while a fourth, evidently "winged," was seen
to dive, and flutter down-stream. The others mounted into the air, and
disappeared in the darkness.

During the time occupied in this manoeuvre, the canoe, no longer guided
by Lucien's oar, had been caught by some eddy in the current, and swept
round stern-foremost. In this position the light no longer shone upon
the river ahead, but was thrown up-stream. All in a downward direction
was buried in deep darkness. Before the voyageurs could bring the canoe
back to its proper direction, a new sound fell upon their ears that
caused some of them to utter a cry of terror. It was the noise of
rushing water, but not that which they had already heard and passed. It
was before them in the river itself. Perhaps it was a cataract, and
_they were sweeping rapidly to its brink_!

The voice of Norman was heard exclaiming, "Hold with your oars!--the
rapids!--the rapids!" At the same time he himself was seen rising up and
stretching forward for an oar. All was now consternation; and the
movements of the party naturally consequent upon such a sudden panic
shook the little craft until her gunwales lipped the water. At the same
time she had swung round, until the light again showed the stream ahead,
and a horrid sight it was.

Far as the eye could see, was a reach of foaming rapids. Dark points of
rocks, and huge black boulders, thickly scattered in the channel, jutted
above the surface; and around and against these, the water frothed and
hissed furiously. There was no cataract, it is true--there is none such
in Red River--but for all purposes of destruction the rapids before them
were equally dangerous and terrible to the eyes of our voyageurs. They
no longer thought of the swans. The dead were permitted to float down
unheeded, the wounded to make its escape. Their onl