I am accustomed to boats of all sorts, and
can handle an oar fairly."

"Oars ain't no good here," the scout said. "You will have to learn to
paddle; but, first of all, you have got to learn to sit still. These
here canoes are awkward things for a beginner. Now you hand in your
traps, and I will stow them away, then you take your place in the
middle of the boat. Here's a paddle for you, and when you begin to feel
yourself comfortable, you can start to try with it, easy and gentle to
begin with; but you must lay it in when we get near where we may expect
that redskins may be in the woods, for the splash of a paddle might
cost us all our scalps."

James took his seat in the middle of the boat. Jonathan was behind him.
Nat handled the paddle in the bow. There was but a brief delay in
starting, and the ten boats darted noiselessly out on to the lake. For
a time, James did not attempt to use his paddle. The canoe was of birch
bark, so thin that it seemed to him that an incautious movement would
instantly knock a hole through her.

Once under weigh, she was steadier than he had expected, and James
could feel her bound forward with each stroke of the paddles. When he
became accustomed to the motion of the boat, he raised himself from a
sitting position in the bottom, and, kneeling as the others were doing,
he began to dip his paddle quietly in the water in time with their
stroke. His familiarity with rowing rendered it easy for him to keep
time and swing, and, ere long, he found himself putting a considerable
amount of force into each stroke. Nat looked back over his shoulder.

"Well done, young 'un. That's first rate for a beginner, and it makes a
deal of difference on our arms. The others are all paddling three, and,
though Jonathan and I have beaten three before now, when our scalps
depended on our doing so, it makes all the difference in the work
whether you have a sitter to take along, or an extra paddle going."

It was falling dusk when the boat started, and was, by this time, quite
dark. Scarce a word was heard in the ten canoes as, keeping near the
right-hand shore of the lake, they glided rapidly along in a close
body. So noiselessly were the paddles dipped into the water that the
drip from them, as they were lifted, was the only sound heard.

Four hours' steady paddling took them to the narrows, about
five-and-twenty miles from their starting point. Here, on the whispered
order of Nat, James laid in his paddle;