The line of canoes lay like a great black arrow across the water. They
were so close together that to the watchers they seemed to blend and
become continuous, and this arrow was headed straight toward the island.
Paul's heart went down with a thump, but a moment later a light leaped
into his eyes.

"The line is turning!" he exclaimed. "Look, Jim, look! They are afraid of
the island!"

"Yes," said Jim Hart, "I see! The ghosts are real, an' it's pow'ful lucky
fur us that they are. The Miamis dassent land!"

It was true. The black arrow suddenly shifted to the right, and the line
of canoes drew into the open water, midway between the island and the
eastern mainland.

"Lay close, Paul, lay close!" said Jim Hart. "We mustn't let 'em catch a
glimpse uv us, an' they're always pow'ful keen-eyed."

Both the man and the boy lay flat on their stomachs on the ground, and
peered from the shelter of the bushes. No human eye out on the lake could
have seen them there. The canoes were now abreast of the island, but were
going more slowly, and both could see that the occupants were looking
curiously at their little wooded domain. But they kept at a healthy
distance.

"I think they're lookin' here because the place is haunted, and not
because we are on it," said Jim Hart.

It seemed that he spoke the truth, as the Miamis presently swung nearer to
the mainland and began to examine the shores long and critically.

"I guess they've been huntin' us all through the woods, an' think now we
may be hid somewhar at the edge uv the lake," said Jim Hart.

It seemed so. The two lay there for hours, watching the little fleet of
canoes as it circled the lake, keeping near the outer rim, and searching
among all the hills and hollows that bordered the shores. Once, when it
was on the western side, the fleet turned its head again toward the
island, and again apprehension arose in the hearts of the boy and the man,
but it was only for a fleeting moment. The line of canoes was quickly
turned away, and bore on down the open water. Paul and Jim Hart were
protected by Manitou.

The circumnavigation of the lake by the Miamis lasted throughout the
remainder of the day, and when the twilight came, the canoes were lost in
its shade toward the southern end of the sheet of water.

"We're safe," said Jim Hart, "but we've still got to keep close. They may
hang about here fur days."

"What about Henry and Ross and Sol?" asked Paul anxiously. "On their w