isper.

Barely had they reached their uncertain sanctuary when the light of
torches shot southward across the bend and next moment circled, a
far-reaching arm, to spread out and illumine the river broadcast as the
Nakonkirhirinons swept into view, their savage faces peering under the
raised flambeaux, their eyes like fiery points--searching their prey.

It fell on all the river, that light, on the running waters disturbed
by myriad blades of white ash, on the banked background of the trees,
on the drooping foliage at the stream's edge,--frail triflers of the
wilderness, stooping from the sweet winds of Heaven to the water's
wanton kiss,--and on a swarm of canoes, each manned by full complement
of men, most of whose faces were eagle-featured and dark, blackeyed and
high-cheekboned, though here and there were the fair hair and white skin
of white men.

Odd, indeed, was the effect of this tableau on the Indians under the
torches. They had come for one lone canoe,--to find a horde; for one man
and one woman,--to fall upon a brigade.

They halted and the distance widened between.

And then the flotilla parted at a word of command from the darkness
ahead and a boat came back among them. It passed close to the fugitives,
and Maren saw a tall man with a square chin, who stood up in it.

When it reached the fringe it went on out into the open water toward the
halted canoes of the Nakonkirhirinons, on whose eager faces sat a sort
of stupid awe.

"What do yez want?" called the tall man sternly, as he swept face to
face with the foremost canoe in which stood a headman of the tribe.
"Whyfore is all this bally-hoo wid th' lights?"

There was no answer and he roared at them like a lion

"Can yez not shpake, ye haythen?"

Whereat a canoe glided from the back shadows and the voice of Bois
DesCaut came in its broken English,

"A boat,--M'sieu,--we seek a boat that but now escaped from camp with
a murderer aboard,--one who killed in cold blood the chief Negansahima
back at the post of De Seviere. My brothers travel to the Pays d'en Haut
that justice may be done. We only seek the murderer."

The tall man stood in silence a moment and glared at the scene, at the
excited faces, the gleaming eyes, the shifting glance of the spokesman.

"A likely sthory!" he said presently. "An' who, may I make bould to ask,
is this murderer?"

DesCaut squirmed a moment in silence.

"Who,--did ye say?"

"A man, M'sieu,--a-a-trapper."

"On