e
on the strong current; but Kovik had the Huskies in hand and they did
not follow. Shortly he had passed the last lodge on the shore and the
camp was soon in the distance. It seemed like a dream--his peril of the
last hour; and now, a free man again, with his puppy in the bow, he was
on his way to the coast and Julie Breton.

Suddenly two rifles cracked in the rocks on the near beach. The paddle
of Marcel dropped from his limp hands. Headlong he lurched to the floor
of the canoe. Again the guns spat from the boulders. Two bullets whined
over the birch-bark. But save for the yelping puppy in the bow, there
was no movement in the canoe, as it slid, the cat's-paw of the current.

Waving their arms in triumph at the collapse of the feared white man,
whose magic had been impotent before their bullets, the Huskies hurried
along shore after the canoe. Carried by breeze and current, with its
whimpering puppy and silent human freight the craft grounded a half-mile
below the ambush. On came the chattering pair of assassins, already
quarrelling over the division of the outfit of the dead man--delirious
with the sweetness of their vengeance for the rough handling the
stricken one in the canoe had meted out to them but an hour before. The
dog, although lashed to the bow thwart, had managed to crawl out of the
boat and was struggling with the thongs which held her, when the Huskies
came running up. Staring into the birch-bark, they turned to each other
gray faces on which was written ghastly fear.

The canoe was empty!

The white man they had thought to find a bloodied heap, was, after all,
a maker of magic--a friend of demons. Kovik had told the truth. They
were lost!

Palsied with dread, their feet frozen to the beach, the young ruffians
awaited the swift vengeance of their enemy. And it came.

Hard by, a rifle crashed in the boulders. With a scream, a Husky reeled
backward with a shattered hand, as his gun, torn from his grasp by the
impact of the bullet, rattled on the stones. A second shot, splintering
the butt of his rifle, hurled the other to his knees. Then with a
demonical yell, Marcel sprang from his ambush.

Running like caribou jumped by barren-ground wolves, the panic-stricken
Huskies fled from the place of horror, pursued by the ricochetting
bullets of the white demon, until they disappeared up the shore.

"A'voir, M'sieurs!" cried Marcel. "De nex' tam you ambush cano', don'
let eet dref behin' de point." And