The First Venture lay in dock at St. John's. She was loaded for Ruddy Cove and the ports beyond. Skipper Bill had launched himself as a coastwise skipper—master of the stout First Venture, carrying freight to the northern settlements at a fair rate for all comers. The hold was full to the deck; and the deck itself was cumbered with casks and cases, all lashed fast in anticipation of a rough voyage. It was a miscellaneous cargo: flour, beef, powder and shot, molasses, kerosene, clothing—such necessities, in short, as the various merchants to whom the cargo was consigned could dispose of to the people of the coast, and such simple comforts as the people could afford.

She was a trim and stout little fore-and-aft schooner of fifty tons burthen. The viewers had awarded the government bounty without a quibble. Old John Hulton, the chief of them—a terror to the slipshod master-builders—had frankly said that she was an honest little craft from bowsprit to taffrail. The newspapers had complimented Bill o' Burnt Bay, her builder, in black and white which could not be disputed. They had even called Skipper Bill "one of the honest master-builders of the outports." Nor had they forgotten to add the hope that "in the hands of Skipper William, builder and master, the new craft will have many and prosperous voyages." By this praise, of course, Skipper Bill was made to glow from head to foot with happy gratification.

All the First Venture wanted was a fair wind out.

"She can leg it, sir," Skipper Bill said to Sir Archibald, running his eyes over the tall, trim spars of the new craft; "an' once she gets t' sea she's got ballast enough t' stand up to a sousing breeze. With any sort o' civil weather she ought t' make Ruddy Cove in five days."

"I'd not drive her too hard," said Sir Archibald, who had come down to look at the new schooner for a purpose.

Bill o' Burnt Bay looked up in amazement. This from the hard-sailing Sir Archibald!

"Not too hard," Sir Archibald repeated.

Skipper Bill laughed.

"I'm sure," said Sir Archibald, "that Mrs. William had rather have you come safe than unexpected. Be modest, Skipper Bill, and reef the Venture when she howls for mercy."

"I'll bargain t' reef her, sir," Bill replied, "when I thinks you would yourself."

"Oh, come, skipper!" Sir Archibald laughed.

Bill o' Burnt Bay roared like the lusty sea-dog he was.

"I've good reason for wishing you to go cautiously," said Sir Archibald, gravely.

Bill looked up with interest.

"You've settled at Ruddy Cove, skipper?"

"Ay, sir," Bill answered. "I moved the wife t' Ruddy Cove when I undertook t' build the Venture."

"I'm thinking of sending Archie down to spend the summer," said Sir Archibald.

Bill o' Burnt Bay beamed largely and delightedly.

"Do you think," Sir Archibald went on, with a little grin, "that Mrs. Skipper William would care to take him in?"

"Care?" Skipper Bill exclaimed. "Why, sir, 'twould be as good as takin' her a stick o' peppermint."

"He'll come aboard this afternoon," said Sir Archibald.

"He'll be second mate o' the Venture," Bill declared.

"Skipper," said Sir Archibald, presently, "you'll be wanting this craft insured, I suppose?"

"Well, no, sir," Bill drawled.

Sir Archibald frowned. "No trouble for me to take the papers out for you," said he.

"You see, sir," Bill explained, "I was allowin' t' save that there insurance money."

"Penny wise and pound foolish," said Sir Archibald.

"Oh," drawled Skipper Bill, "I'll manage t' get her t' Ruddy Cove well enough. Anyhow," he added, "'twon't be wind nor sea that will wreck my schooner."

"As you will," said Sir Archibald, shortly; "the craft's yours."

* * * * *

Archie Armstrong came aboard that afternoon—followed by two porters and two trunks. He was Sir Archibald's son; there was no doubt about that: a fine, hardy lad—robust, straight, agile, alert, with his head carried high; merry, quick-minded, ready-tongued, fearless in wind and high sea. His hair was tawny, his eyes blue and wide and clear, his face broad and good-humoured. He was something of a small dandy, too, as the two porters and the two trunks might have explained. The cut of his coat, the knot in his cravat, the polish on his boots, the set of his knickerbockers, were always matters of deep concern to him. But this did not interfere with his friendship with Billy Topsail, the outport boy. That friendship had been formed in times of peril and hardship, when a boy was a boy, and clothes had had nothing to say in the matter.

Archie bounded up the gangplank, crossed the deck in three leaps and stuck his head into the forecastle.

"Ahoy, Billy Topsail!" he roared.

"Ahoy, yourself!" Billy shouted. "Come below, Archie, an' take a look at Jimmie Grimm."

Jimmie Grimm was at once taken into the company of friends.

——-

[2] The story of this voyage—the tale of the time when Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail and Bill o' Burnt Bay were lost in the snow on the ice-floe—with certain other happenings in which Billy Topsail was involved—is related in "The Adventures of Billy Topsail."



CHAPTER X

In Which the Cook Smells Smoke, and the "First Venture" In a Gale of Wind Off the Chunks, Comes Into Still Graver Peril, Which Billy Topsail Discovers

Skipper Bill o' Burnt Bay got the First Venture under way at dawn of the next day. It was blowing a stiff breeze. A fine, fresh wind was romping fair to the northwest, where, far off, Ruddy Cove lay and Mrs. Skipper William waited.

"I 'low," Skipper Bill mused, as the schooner slipped through the narrows, "that that there insurance wouldn't o' done much harm anyhow."

There was an abrupt change of weather. It came without warning; and there was no hint of apology to the skipper of the First Venture. When the schooner was still to the s'uth'ard of the dangerous Chunks, but approaching them, she was beating laboriously into a violent and capricious head wind. Bill o' Burnt Bay, giving heed to Sir Archibald's injunction, kept her well off the group of barren islands. They were mere rocks, scattered widely. Some of them showed their forbidding heads to passing craft; others were submerged, as though lying in wait. It would be well to sight them, he knew, that he might better lay his course; but he was bound that no lurking rock should "pick up" his ship.

"Somehow or other," he thought, "I wisht I had took out that there insurance."

At dusk it began to snow. What with this thick, blinding cloud driving past, shrouding the face of the sea, and what with the tumultuous waves breaking over her, and what with the roaring gale drowning her lee rail, the First Venture was having a rough time of it. Skipper Bill, with his hands on the wheel, had the very satisfactory impression, for which he is not to be blamed, that he was "a man." But when, at last, the First Venture began to howl for mercy in no uncertain way, he did not hesitate to waive the wild joy of "driving" for the satisfaction of keeping his spars in the sockets.

"Better call the hands, Tom!" he shouted to the first hand. "We'll reef her."

Tom put his head into the forecastle. The fire in the little round stove was roaring lustily; and the swinging lamp filled the narrow place with warm light.

"Out with you, lads!" Tom cried. "All hands on deck t' reef the mains'l!"

Up they tumbled; and up tumbled Archie Armstrong, and up tumbled Jimmie Grimm, and up tumbled Billy Topsail.

"Blowin' some," thought Archie. "Great sailin' breeze. What's he reefin' for?"

The great sail was obstinate. Ease the schooner as Skipper Bill would, it was still hard for his crew of two men, three lads and a cook to grasp and confine the canvas. Meantime, the schooner lurched along, tossing her head, digging her nose into the frothy waves. A cask on the after deck broke its lashings, pursued a mad and devastating career fore and aft, and at last went spinning into the sea. Skipper Bill devoutly hoped that nothing else would get loose above or below. He cast an apprehensive glance into the darkening cloud of snow ahead. There was no promise to be descried. And to leeward the first islands of the Chunks, which had been sighted an hour ago, had disappeared in the night.

"Lively with that mains'l, lads!" Skipper Bill shouted, lifting his voice above the wind. "We'll reef the fores'l!"

The crew had been intent upon the task in hand. Not a man had yet smelled smoke. And they continued to wrestle with the obstinate sail, each wishing, heartily enough, to get the dirty-weather job well done, and to return to the comfort of the forecastle. It was the cook who first paused to sniff—to sniff again—and to fancy he smelled smoke. But a gust of wind at that moment bellied his fold of the sail, and he forgot the dawning suspicion in an immediate tussle to reduce the disordered canvas. A few minutes more of desperate work and the mainsail was securely reefed; but these were supremely momentous intervals, during which the fate of the First Venture was determined.

"All stowed, sir!" Archie Armstrong shouted to the skipper.

"Get at that fores'l, then!" was the order.

With the customary, "Ay, ay, sir!" shouted cheerily, in the manner of good men and willing lads, the crew ran forward.

Skipper Bill remembers that the cook tripped and went sprawling into the lee scupper; and that he scrambled out of the water with a laugh.

It was the last laugh aboard the First Venture; for the condition of the schooner was then instantly discovered.

"Fire!" screamed Billy Topsail.

The First Venture was all ablaze forward.



CHAPTER XI

In Which the "First Venture" All Ablaze Forward, Is Headed For the Rocks and Breakers of the Chunks, While Bill o' Burnt Bay and His Crew Wait for the Explosion of the Powder in Her Hold. In Which, Also, a Rope Is Put to Good Use

"Fire!"

A cloud of smoke broke from the forecastle and was swept off by the wind. A tongue of red flame flashed upward and expired. Skipper Bill did not need the cries of terror and warning to inform him. The First Venture was afire! And she was not only afire; she was off the Chunks in a gale of wind and snow.

"Aft, here, one o' you!"

When Billy Topsail took the wheel, the skipper plunged into the forecastle. It was a desperate intention. He was back in a moment, singed and gasping. But in that interval he had made out that the forecastle stove, in some violent lurch of the schooner, had broken loose, and had been bandied about, distributing red coals in every part. He had made out, moreover, that the situation of the schooner was infinitely perilous, if not, indeed, quite beyond hope. The forecastle was all ablaze. In five minutes it would be a furnace.

"We're lost!" Jimmie Grimm cried, staring at the frothy waves running past.

"Not yet," Archie grimly replied.

They were all of heart and strength and ingenuity; and they worked with all their might. But the buckets of water, and the great seas, which Skipper Bill, in desperation, deliberately shipped, made little impression. It was soon evident that the little First Venture was doomed. Meantime, the skipper had brought her before the wind, and she was now flying towards the inhospitable Chunks. The skipper was less concerned for his schooner than for the lives of his crew. The ship was already lost; the crew—well, how could the crew survive the rocks and gigantic breakers of the Chunks?

It was the only hope. No small boat could for a moment live in the sea that was running. The schooner must be beached on the Chunks. There was no other refuge. But how beach her? It was a dark night, with the snow flying thick. Was it possible to sight a black, low-lying rock? There was nothing for it but to drive with the wind in the hope of striking. There were many islands; she might strike one. But would it really be an island, whereon a man might crawl out of reach of the sea? or would it be a rock swept by the breakers? Chance would determine that. Skipper Bill was powerless.

But would she make the Chunks before she was ablaze from stem to stern? Again, the skipper was powerless; he could do no more than give her all the wind that blew.

So he ordered the reefs shaken out—and waited.

"Tom," said the skipper, presently, to the first hand, "was it you stowed the cargo?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a pause. Archie Armstrong and Jimmie Grimm, aft near the wheel, wondered why the skipper had put the question.

"An' where," the skipper asked, quietly, "did you put the powder?"

"For'ard, sir."

"How far for'ard?"

"Fair up against the forecastle bulkhead!"

The appalling significance of this was plain to the crew. The bulkhead was a thin partition dividing the forecastle from the hold.

"Archie," Skipper Bill drawled, "you better loose the stays'l sheet. She ought t' do better than this." He paused. "Fair against the forecastle bulkhead?" he continued. "Tom, you better get the hatch off, an' see what you're able t' do about gettin' them six kegs o' powder out. No—bide here!" he added. "Take the wheel again, Billy. Get that hatch off, some o' you."

It was the skipper himself who dropped into the hold. The cargo was packed tight. Heavy barrels of flour, puncheons of molasses, casks of pork and beef, lay between the skipper and the powder. He crawled forward, wriggling in the narrow space between the freight and the deck. No fire had as yet entered the hold; but the place was full of stifling smoke. It was apparent that the removal of the powder would be the labour of hours; and there were no hours left for labour. The skipper could stand the smoke no longer. He retreated towards the hatch. How long it would be before the fire communicated itself to the cargo—how long it would be before the explosion of six kegs of powder would scatter the wreck of the First Venture upon the surface of the sea—no man could tell. But the end was inevitable.

Anxious questions greeted the skipper when again he stood upon the wind-swept deck.

"Close the hatch," said he.

"No chance, sir?" Archie asked.

"No, b'y."

The forecastle was already closed. There was no gleam of fire anywhere to be seen. The bitter wind savoured of smoke; nothing else betrayed the schooner's peril.

"Now, get you all back aft!" was the skipper's command. "Keep her head as it points."

When the crew had crept away to the place remotest from the danger point, Bill o' Burnt Bay went forward to keep a lookout for the rocks and breakers. The burning forecastle was beneath his feet; he could hear the crackling of the fire; and the smoke, rising now more voluminously, troubled his nostrils and throat. It was pitch dark ahead. There was no blacker shadow of land, no white flash of water, to give him hope. It seemed as though an unbroken expanse of sea lay before the labouring First Venture. But the skipper knew to the contrary; somewhere in the night into which he stared—somewhere near, and, momentarily, drawing nearer—lay the Chunks. He wondered if the First Venture would strike before the explosion occurred. It must be soon, he knew. The possibility of being off the course did not trouble him.

Soon the seams of the deck began to open. Smoke poured out in thickening clouds. Points of light, fast changing to lines of flame, warned the skipper that he must retreat. It was not, however, until heat and smoke and the certain prospect of collapse compelled him, that he joined the crew. He was not a spectacular hero; when common sense dictated return, he obeyed without delay, and without maudlin complaint. Without a word he took the wheel from Billy Topsail's hands, and without a word he kept the schooner on her course. There was no need of command or advice; men and boys knew their situation and their duty.

"It can't be long," said the cook.

There was now a glow of red light above the forecastle. The fire was about to break through. It was not hard to surmise that the collapse of the bulkhead was imminent.

"No, sir!" the fidgety cook repeated. "It can't be long, now."

It seemed long. Minute after minute passed, each of incredible length, while the First Venture staggered forward, wildly pitching through the seas. At last, the flames broke out of the forecastle and illuminated the deck.

"Not long, now!" the cook whimpered. "It can't be!"

Nor was it. The First Venture struck. She was upon the rocks before the skipper was well aware that breakers lay ahead. Her bow fell, struck, was lifted, fell again, and fastened itself. The next wave flung the schooner broadside. The third completed the turn. She lay with her head pointing into the wind. Her stern, where the crew stood waiting for the end, rose and fell on the verge of a great breaker. Beyond was a broken cliff, rising to unwashed heights, which the snow had begun to whiten. The bow was lifted clear of the waves; the stern was awash. A space of white water lay between the schooner and the shore.

Bill o' Burnt Bay let go his grip on the wheel. There was but one thing to do. Many a skipper had done it before; but never before had there been such desperate need of haste. The fire still burned lustily; and the forecastle was high out of the water.

"If I can't do it," the skipper shouted, "it's the first hand's turn next."

He had fastened the end of a coil of rope about his waist. Now he stood swaying on the taffrail. By the light of the fire—uncertain and dull—he must act. He leaped a moment after the next wave had slipped under the stern—when, in the current, he should reach the rocks just after the wave had broken. The crew waited a long time. Many a glance was cast forward; it seemed to them all, such headway had the fire made, that the six kegs of powder must explode the very next instant. No sign came from the skipper; and no sight of him could be caught. They paid out the rope—and waited. The rope was for a long time loose in their hands.

"He's landed!" cried Jimmie Grimm.

The rope was hauled taut. Upon the rocks, out of reach of the sea, the figure of the skipper could be seen.

"One at a time!" Skipper Bill shouted.

And one at a time they went—decently and in order, like true Newfoundland sailors, Tom Rook, the first hand, the last of all. When they were all ashore, they scrambled like mad up the cliff; and they were no more than out of danger when the First Venture was blown to atoms. There was a flash, a deafening roar—and darkness; broken only by the spluttering splinters of the little craft.

* * * * *

That night, from Heart's Harbour, the folk observed a ship afire, running in towards the Chunks. To the report they sent immediately to St. John's—there happens fortunately to be a government telegraph station at Heart's Harbour—they added, later, that she had blown up. But from St. John's the salvage-tug Hurricane was dispatched into the stormy sea in search of the survivors; and on the second day following she picked up Skipper Bill o' Burnt Bay and his crew.

Next day they were in St. John's.

"Wisht I'd took your advice about the insurance, sir," broken-hearted Bill o' Burnt Bay said to Sir Archibald.

Sir Archibald laughed. "I took it for you," said he.

"What?" Skipper Bill exploded.

"I insured the First Venture on my own responsibility," Sir Archibald replied. "You shall build the Second Venture at Ruddy Cove next winter."

Archie Armstrong and Bill o' Burnt Bay, with the lads and men of the lost First Venture, went back to Ruddy Cove by rail and the mail-boat.



CHAPTER XII

In Which Old David Grey, Once of the Hudson Bay Company, Begins the Tale of How Donald McLeod, the Factor at Fort Refuge, Scorned a Compromise With His Honour, Though His Arms Were Pinioned Behind Him and a Dozen Tomahawks Were Flourished About His Head.

Archie Armstrong was presently established in a white little room in the beaming Aunt "Bill's" little white cottage at Ruddy Cove. His two trunks—two new trunks, now—were there established with him, of course; and they contained a new outfit of caps, shoes, boots, sweaters, coats, gloves, and what not, suited to every circumstance and all sorts of weather. Then began for Archie, Jimmie and Billy—with Bagg, of the London gutters, sometimes included—hearty times ashore and afloat. It was Bagg, indeed, who proposed the cruise to Birds' Nest Islands.

"I said I wouldn't go t' Birds' Nest Islands," said Billy Topsail, "an' I won't."

"Ah, come on, Billy," Archie pleaded.

"I said I wouldn't," Billy repeated, obstinately, "an' I won't."

"That ain't nothink," Bagg argued.

"Anyhow," said Billy, "I won't, for I got my reasons."[3]

David Grey, a bent old fellow, who was now long "past his labour," as they say in Newfoundland, sat within hearing. Boy and man he had been in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, as hunter, clerk, trader, explorer, factor; and here, on the coast where he had been born, he had settled down to spend the rest of his days. He was not an ignorant man, but, on the contrary, an intelligent one, educated by service, wide evening study of books, and hard experience in the great wildernesses of the Canadian Northwest, begun, long ago, when he was a lad.

"You make me think of Donald McLeod," said he.

The boys drew near.

* * * * *

"It was long ago," David went on. "Long, long ago," the old man repeated. "It was 'way back in the first half of the last century, for I was little more than a boy then. McLeod was factor at Fort Refuge, a remote post, situated three hundred miles or more to the northeast of Lake Superior, but now abandoned. And a successful, fair-dealing trader he was, but so stern and taciturn as to keep both his helpers and his half-civilized customers in awe of him. It was deep in the wilderness—not the wilderness as you boys know it, where a man might wander night and day without fear of wild beast or savage, but a vast, unexplored place, with dangers lurking everywhere.

"'Grey,' he said to me when I reported for duty, fresh from headquarters, 'if you do your duty by me, I'll do mine by you.'

"'I'll try to,' said I.

"'When you know me better,' said McLeod, with quiet emphasis, 'you'll know that I stand by my word.'

"We dealt, of course, with the Indians, who, spring and fall, brought their furs to the fort, and never failed to remain until they had wasted their earnings in the fashion that best pleased their fancy.

"Even then the Indians were degenerate, given over to idleness and debauchery; but they were not so far sunk in these habits as are the dull, lazy fellows who sell you the baskets and beaded moccasins that the squaws make to-day. They were superstitious, malicious, revengeful, and they were almost in a condition of savagery, for the only law they knew was the law our guns enforced. Some authority was vested in the factor, and he was not slow to exert it when a flagrant offense was committed near by.

"'There's no band of Indians in these parts,' I was told, 'that can scare McLeod. He'll see justice done for and against them as between man and man.'

"Fort Refuge was set in a wide clearing. It was built of logs and surrounded by a high, stout stockade. Admittance to the yard was by a great gate, which was closed promptly at sundown, and always strongly barred. We had no garrison regularly stationed there to defend us. In all, it may be, we could muster nine men—McLeod, two clerks, and a number of stout fellows who helped handle the stores. Moreover, were our gate to be closed and our fort surrounded by a hostile force, we should be utterly cut off from communication with those quarters whence relief might come. We had the company's wares to guard, and we knew that once we were overcome, whatever the object of the attack, the wares and our lives would be lost together.

"'But we can stand a long siege,' I used to think; and indeed there was good ground for comfort in that.

"Our stockade was impregnable to an attack by force, no doubt; but as it soon appeared, it was no more than a paper ribbon before the wily strategy of the Indians. One night, when I had shut the gates and dropped the bars, I heard a long-drawn cry—a scream, in which it was not hard to detect the quality of terror and great stress. It came, as I thought, from the edge of the forest. When it was repeated, near at hand, my heart went to my mouth, for I knew that a band of Indians was encamped beyond, and had been carousing for a week past. Then came a knocking at the gate—a desperate pounding and kicking.

"'Let me in! Open! Open!' I heard a man cry.

"I had my hands on the bar to lift it and throw open the gate when McLeod came out of his house.

"'Stop!' he shouted.

"I withdrew from the gate. He approached, waved me back, and put his own hand on the bar.

"'Who's there?' he asked.

"'Let me in, McLeod. It's Landley. Quick! Open the gate, or I'll be killed!'

"McLeod's hesitation vanished. He opened the gate. A man stumbled in. Then the gate was shut with a bang.

"'What's this about, Landley?' McLeod said, sternly. 'What trouble have you got yourself into now?'

"I knew Landley for a white man who had abandoned himself to a shiftless, vicious life with the Indians. He had sunk lower, even, than they. He was an evil, worthless, ragged fellow, despised within the fort and respected nowhere. But while he stood there, gasping and terror-stricken, I pitied him; and it may be McLeod himself was stirred by the mere kinship of colour.

"'Speak up, man!' he commanded. 'What have you done?'

"'I've done no wrong,' Landley whimpered. 'Buffalo Horn's young son has died, and they put the blame on me. They say I've cast the evil eye on him. They say I killed him with a spell. You know me, McLeod. You know I haven't got the evil eye. Don't turn me out, man. They're coming to kill me. Don't give me up. You know I'm not blood-guilty. You know me. You know I haven't got the evil eye.'

"'Tush, man!' said McLeod. 'Is that all the trouble?'

"'That's all!' Landley cried. 'I've done no harm. Don't give me up to them.'

"'I won't,' McLeod said, positively. 'You're safe here until they prove you blood-guilty. I'll not give you up.'"

Old David Grey paused; and Jimmie demanded:

"Did they give un up?"

"Was they wild Indians?" Bagg gasped.

David laughed. "You just wait and see," said he.

——-

[3] Billy Topsail's reasons were no doubt connected with an encounter with a gigantic devil-fish at Birds' Nest Islands, as related in "The Adventures of Billy Topsail."



CHAPTER XIII

In Which There Are Too Many Knocks At the Gate, a Stratagem Is Successful, Red Feather Draws a Tomahawk, and an Indian Girl Appears On the Scene

"McLeod turned on his heel and went to the shop," David continued; "and when he had ordered a watch to be kept on the clearing on all sides, we devoted ourselves to the matter in hand—the preparation of the regular quarterly statement for the officials at headquarters. But as we laboured, hatchets, knives and the cruel, evil faces of the savages, by whom, as I chose to think, we were threatened, mixed themselves with the figures, to my bewilderment.

"Soon the dusk came, and while I trimmed and lighted the candles in the shadowy outer room there seemed to be shapes in the corners which I had never seen there in quieter times. McLeod, however, was unperturbed. He had forgotten all about the numerous band which he stood ready to defy.

"'Do you think there is danger?' said I.

"'Danger?' said he. 'From what?'

"'Buffalo Horn's band,' said I.

"'Nonsense!' said he. 'What is that last total? There seems to be a shilling and sixpence missing here.'

"At that moment one of the helpers came in. He was visibly excited—like a man who bears tidings.

"'Red Feather is at the gate,' he said.

"'Is he alone?' said McLeod.

"'Yes, sir. We made sure of that.'

"'Fetch him here,' said the factor, calmly. 'Take Tom and Tobias to the gate, and don't let Red Feather hold it open.'

"Red Feather was soon brought in. He was the chief of the band, an old, crafty Indian, chief in name, but inferior in authority to Buffalo Horn, who was chief in fact. McLeod continued his work.

"'Let us talk,' said Red Feather, at last.

"He spoke in his own tongue, which I shall interpret freely for you. McLeod put his pen aside and faced about.

"'What have we to talk about?' he asked. 'The trading is done. You have your supplies. There is no business between us.'

"'We have the white man to talk about,' said Red Feather. 'He has killed a child of our tribe, and you have given him refuge here. He has killed the son of Buffalo Horn with the evil eye. He must be put to death.'

"'I know this man,' said McLeod. 'He has not the evil eye. He has killed no man, and he shall not be given up.'

"'His life is forfeit to the tribe.'

"'His life is in my keeping. I have said that he shall not lose it. Am I the man to break my word?'

"'You have kept your word between us,' said Red Feather. 'You are not the man to break your word.'

"'What business, then, lies between us? Our talk is done.'

"The guard at the gate interrupted. 'There is a man knocking at the gate,' he said.

"'It is my brother,' said Red Feather. 'He comes to join the talk. Let him in.'

"'Open the gate,' said McLeod.

"It was growing dark. I went with the guard to admit the brother of Red Feather. Dusk had fallen over the clearing. The sky was overcast; in half an hour it would be deep night, the clearing one with the forest. But we opened the gate. A tall Indian stalked in. He was alone, and I knew him for the brother of Red Feather. I followed him to the shop, making sure first that the bar was in place.

"'Let us have the white man,' he said to McLeod. 'Let the peace between us continue.'

"McLeod perceived the threat. He was not a rash man. He had no wish to provoke a conflict, but he had no thought of surrendering the refugee. As for me, my trust was in the stockade.

"'I will talk with the white man,' he said.

"The factor was gone for half an hour. He secreted Landley, inspected the defenses, gathered the women and children in the blockhouse, and returned to the council.

"'The white man is not blood-guilty,' he said, proudly. 'I have promised him protection and he shall have it.'

"Again the helper came. 'There is another knock at the gate,' said he.

"'Who is there?' said McLeod.

"'It's so dark I can't see,' said the helper.

"'The man is my cousin,' said Red Feather. 'He has come to talk with us. Let him in, for he is a wise man and may help us.'

"'Open the gate,' said McLeod.

"We sat silent, waiting for the cousin of Red Feather, the wise man who might help us. I heard the rattle of the bar as the helper lifted it, then the creak of the gate. Then a furious outcry, a confusion of howls and screams, a war-whoop and a rush of feet. The Indians were within the stockade. A moment later they burst into the shop and advanced upon us, uttering blood-curdling whoops and brandishing their hatchets and knives. McLeod reached for the musket above the desk, but before his fingers touched it Red Feather caught him by the arms, and with the help of the brother made him prisoner. At the same instant I was secured.

"'Let us strike! Let us strike!' the Indians kept shouting, all the while dancing about us, flourishing their weapons.

"The danger was real and terrible. We were at the mercy of the band, and at that moment I did not doubt that they were bent on murder and pillage. There had been a cruel massacre at Fort Pine but a few months before. The story was fresh in my mind. That crime had gone unpunished; nor was it likely that a sufficient force would be sent west to give the band their due. There was nothing now to deter Red Feather's men from committing a similar outrage. We were remote from our kind, on the edge of a wilderness into which escape was a simple matter. Our guns, as I have said, had been our law and defense, and we were now utterly in the power of our enemies.

"'Let us strike! Let us strike!' was the cry.

"Buffalo Horn had come in with the band. It was soon evident that to the restraining influence of his presence was due our respite. He waved his braves back. They withdrew and became quiet.

"'Will you give the murderer of my child to our tribe?' the chief said to McLeod.

"'He is no longer mine to give,' said the factor.

"'Will you give him to us in peace and forget that he has gone with us?'

"McLeod was still in the grasp of Red Feather and his brother. Buffalo Horn was facing him. Behind the chief, awaiting his signal, was the band, with knives and hatchets in hand.

"'No,' said McLeod.

"The tumult was renewed. The Indians advanced, threatening the factor with their weapons and crying out for his death. But McLeod was not to be terrified.



"'Let us take the white man,' said Buffalo Horn, lifting his hand for silence. 'We have no quarrel with you. Let all be as it was.'

"'No,' said McLeod. 'I will never consent to his murder.'

"'Let us take him.'

"'I said I wouldn't,' said McLeod, 'and I won't.'

"It seemed to me that the end had come. Buffalo Horn looked steadily into McLeod's eyes. McLeod gave him glance for glance. He was ready to die for the word he had passed. The Indian hesitated. It may be that he did not want to precipitate the slaughter. Then he turned, as if to give the signal. Before his hand was raised, however, the daughter of the Indian interpreter of the post pushed her way through the band of braves and stood before their chief.

"'Listen,' said she. 'Have you come to rob the great company of its goods?'

"'No,' said Buffalo Horn. 'We have no quarrel with the great company.'

"She was a slip of a girl, to whom, in sickness and in health, McLeod had been unfailingly kind. She knew no fear, and in intelligence she was superior to all the other women of her race I have known.

"'Have you come to take the life of this man?' she went on, moving closer to Buffalo Horn, and looking deep into his eyes.

"'No,' said the chief, 'we have no quarrel with this man. He is a good man, but he will not deliver the murderer of my child.'

"'Will you take his life because of that?'

"'No; we will take his life because he will betray our part in the death of the white man whom he has tried to shelter.'

"'There are others who might betray you.'

"'And their lives, also,' said Buffalo Horn, composedly.

"All that had been implied was now expressed. He was to massacre us all to shield his tribe from the punishment that might follow the discovery of his revenge.

"'You will lay waste the fort,' said the interpreter's daughter, 'but will the ruins not accuse you to the great company which this man serves?'

"'We will be far away.'

"'And will you never care to return to the grounds you have hunted from childhood?'

"To this Buffalo Horn made no reply. He looked at the floor, his arms folded, and he was silent for a long time.

"'This man,' said the girl, touching McLeod on the shoulder, 'has dealt fairly by you. He has kept his faith with you. He said that he would provide you with food through the hard seasons. Has he not done so?'

"'He has kept faith with us,' said the chief. 'Therefore he is a good man.'

"'He is a good man because he has kept faith with you,' the girl said, eagerly. 'Would you, then, have him break faith with some other? He has said to the white man, "I will not give you up." Would you have him break the word he has passed? For if he breaks it once, will he not break it again? If he should yield up the white man, what security would you have that he would provide for you through the next hard season?'

"'He keeps his word,' said Buffalo Horn. 'He is a good man.'

"He made a sign to Red Feather to release McLeod. Then he gathered his braves about him, and stalking solemnly at their head, led them out of the shop, over the courtyard and through the gate. We were left alone.

"'Leave the gate open, Tobias,' said McLeod. 'Come, boy,' to me, 'let us get to work on the quarterly statement again. This interruption came at an awkward time. We'll have to make up for it.'"

That was the end of David's story.



CHAPTER XIV

In Which Jimmie Grimm and Master Bagg Are Overtaken by the Black Fog in the Open Sea and Lose the Way Home While a Gale is Brewing

Jimmie Grimm and Bagg, returning from Birds' Nest Islands, were caught by the black fog in the open sea. It had been lowering all day. Dull clouds had hung in the sky since early morning and had kept the waters of the sea sombre. There was no wind—not the faintest breath or sigh. The harbour water was still; and the open—beyond the tickle rocks—was without a ripple or hint of ground swell. A thick, gray mist crept out from the hills, late in the afternoon, and presently obscured the shore. Jimmie and Bagg were then off Mad Mull. Two miles of flat sea and windless space lay between the punt and the harbour.

"Goin' t' be thick as mud," Jimmie grumbled.

"Wisht we was more inshore," said Bagg, anxiously.

At dusk the fog was so thick that every landmark had been blotted from sight.

"Is you able t' see Mad Mull?" Jimmie demanded.

"I is not," said Bagg.

Mad Mull was lost in the fog. It was the last landmark. The tickle rocks, through which a passage leads to the harbour, had long ago vanished.

"Wisht we was home," said Bagg.

"Don't you go an' get scared, Bagg," Jimmie laughed. "Never you fear. I'll take you home."

It was hot, dark and damp—a breathless evening. There was a menace in the still air and heat. A roll of thunder sounded from the northeast.

"I 'low 'twill blow afore long," said Jimmie.

"'Urry up," said Bagg.

Jimmie put a little more strength into the rowing. The punt moved faster, but not fast enough to please Bagg, who was terrified by the fog, the thunder and the still, black water.

"Never you fear," Jimmie grumbled; "you'll get home afore the wind comes."

Bagg wasn't so sure of that.

"An' it will come," Jimmie reflected. "I can fair feel it on the way."

Jimmie pulled doggedly. Occasionally a rumble of thunder came out of the northeast to enliven his strokes. There was no wind, however, as yet, except, perhaps, an adverse stirring of the air—the first hint of a gale. On and on crept the punt. There was no lessening of the heat. Jimmie and Bagg fairly gasped. They fancied it had never been so hot before. But Jimmie did not weaken at the oars; he was stout-hearted and used to labour, and the punt did not lag. On they went through the mist without a mark to guide them. Roundabout was a wall of darkening fog. It hid the whole world.

"Must be gettin' close inshore," said Jimmie, at last, while he rested on his oars, quite bewildered.

"What you stoppin' for?" Bagg demanded.

"Seems t' me," said Jimmie, scratching his head in a puzzled way, "that we ought t' be in the tickle by this time."

It was evident, however, that they were not in the tickle.[4] There was no sign of the rocks on either hand. Jimmie gazed about him in every direction for a moment. He saw nothing except a circle of black water about the boat. Beyond was the black wall of fog.

"Wonderful queer," thought he, as he dipped his oars in the water again; "but I 'low we ought t' be in the harbour."

There was a louder clap of thunder.

"We'll have that wind afore long," mused Jimmie.

"You 'aven't gone an' lost your way, 'ave you?" Bagg inquired in a frightened voice.

"Wonderful queer," Jimmie replied. "We ought t' be in the harbour by this time. I 'low maybe I been pullin' too far t' the nor'east."

"No, you 'aven't," said Bagg; "you been pullin' too far t' the sou'east."

"I 'low not," mused Jimmie.

"'Ave, too," Bagg sniffed.

Jimmie was not quite sure, after all. He wavered. Something seemed to be wrong. It didn't feel right. Some homing instinct told him that the tickle rocks did not lie in the direction in which the bow of the punt pointed. In fact, the whole thing was queer—very queer! But he had not pulled too far to the southeast; he was sure of that. Perhaps, too far to the northeast. He determined to change his course.

"Now, Bagg," said he, confidently, "I'll take you into harbour."

A clap of thunder—sounding near at hand—urged the boy on.

"Wisht you would," Bagg whimpered.

Jimmie turned the boat's head. He wondered if he had turned far enough. Then he fancied he had turned too far. Why, of course, thought he, he had turned too far! He swerved again towards the original direction. This, however, did not feel just right. Again he changed the course of the boat. He wondered if the harbour lay ahead. Or was it the open sea? Was he pulling straight out from shore? Would the big wind catch the little punt out of harbour?

"How's she headin' now?" he asked Bagg.

"You turned too far," said Bagg.

"Not far enough," said Jimmie.

Jimmie rowed doggedly on the course of his choosing for half an hour or more without developing anything to give him a clue to their whereabouts. Night added to the obscurity. They might have been on a shoreless waste of water for all that they were able to see. The mist made the night impenetrable. Jimmie could but dimly distinguish Bagg's form, although he sat not more than five feet from him; soon he could not see him at all. At last he lifted his oars and looked over the bow.

"I don't know where we is," he said.

"No more do I," Bagg sobbed.

"I 'low we're lost," Jimmie admitted.

Just then the first gust of wind rippled the water around the boat and went whistling into the mist.

——-

[4] A "tickle" is a narrow passage of water between two islands. It is also (as here used) a narrow passage leading into harbour.



CHAPTER XV

In Which it Appears to Jimmie Grimm and Master Bagg That Sixty Seconds Sometimes Make More Than a Minute

Ruddy Cove is deep—vastly deep—except in one part. That is in Burnt Cove within the harbour. There at low tide it is shallow. Rocks protrude from the water—dripping and covered with a slimy seaweed. And Burnt Cove lies near the tickle to the sea. You pass between the tickle rocks, bear sharply to the right and are presently in the cove. It is a big expanse, snugly sheltered; and it shallows so slowly that there are many acres of quiet water in which the little fellows of Ruddy Cove learn to swim.

Ezekiel Rideout's cottage was by Burnt Cove; and Bagg wished most heartily that he were there.

* * * * *

But Bagg was at sea. And the punt was a small one. It was not Jimmie Grimm's fishing punt; it was a shallow little rodney, which Jimmie's father used for going about in when the ice and seals were off the coast. It was so small and light that it could be carried over the pans of ice from one lane of open water to another. And being small and light it was cranky. It was no rough weather boat; nor was it a boat to move very much about in, as both boys were quite well aware.

Bagg heard Jimmie's oars rattle in the row-locks and the blades strike the water. The boat moved forward. Jimmie began to row with all his strength—almost angrily. It was plain that he was losing his temper. And not only did he lose his temper; he had grown tired before he regained it.

"Here, Bagg," said he; "you have a go at it."

"I'll 'ave a try," Bagg agreed.

Jimmie let the oars swing to the side and Bagg made ready to steady the little boat. Bagg heard him rise. The boat rocked a little.

"Steady!" Bagg gasped.

"Steady, yourself!" Jimmie retorted. "Think I don't know how t' get around in a rodney?"

It was now so dark, what with night and fog, that Bagg could not see Jimmie. But presently he understood that Jimmie was on his feet waiting for him to rise in his turn. They were to exchange places. Bagg got to his feet, and, with all the caution he could command, advanced a step, stretching out his hands as he did so. But Bagg had not been born on the coast and was not yet master of himself in a boat. He swayed to the left—fairly lurched.

"Have a care!" Jimmie scolded.

Have you never, in deep darkness, suddenly felt a loss of power to keep your equilibrium? You open your eyes to their widest. Nothing is to be seen. You have no longer a sense of perpendicularity. You sway this way and that, groping for something to keep you from falling. And that is just what happened to Bagg. He was at best shaky on his legs in a boat; and now, in darkness and fear, his whole mind was fixed on finding something to grasp with his hands.

"Is you ready?" asked Jimmie.

"Uh-huh!" Bagg gasped.

"Come on," said Jimmie; "but mind what you're about."

Bagg made a step forward. Again the boat rocked; again the darkness confused him, and he had to stop to regain his balance. In the pause it struck him with unpleasant force that he could not swim. He was sure, moreover, that the boat would sink if she filled. He wished he had not thought of that. A third half-crawling advance brought him within reach of Jimmie. He caught Jimmie's outstretched hand and drew himself forward until they were very close.

"Look out!" he cried.

He had crept too far to the right. The boat listed alarmingly. They caught each other about the middle, and crouched down, waiting, rigid, until she had come to an even keel.

Presently they were ready to pass each other.

"Now," said Jimmie.

Bagg made the attempt to pass him. The foothold was uncertain; the darkness was confusing. He moved to the side, but so great was his agitation that he miscalculated, and the boat tipped suddenly under his weight. The water swept over the gunwale. Bagg would have fallen bodily from the punt had it not been for Jimmie's clutch on his arm. In the light they might have steadied themselves; in the dark they could not.

Jimmie drew Bagg back—but too hurriedly, too strongly, too far. The side of the boat over which he had almost fallen leaped high in the air and the opposite gunwale was submerged. Jimmie released him, and Bagg collapsed into a sitting posture in the bottom. Instinctively he grasped the gunwales and frantically tried to right the boat. He felt the water slowly curling over.

"She's goin' down," said Jimmie.

"Sinkin'!" Bagg sobbed.

The boat sank very slowly, gently swaying from side to side. Bagg and Jimmie could see nothing, and all they could hear was the gurgle and hissing of the water as it curled over the gunwales and eddied in the bottom of the boat. Bagg felt the water rise over his legs—creep to his waist—rise to his chest—and still ascend. Through those seconds he was incapable of action. He did not think; he just waited.

Jimmie wondered where the shore was. A yard or a mile away? In which direction would it be best to strike out? How could he help Bagg? He must not leave Bagg to drown. But how could he help him? What was the use of trying, anyhow? If he could not row ashore, how could he manage to swim ashore? And if he could not get ashore himself, how could he help Bagg ashore?

Nothing was said. Neither boy breathed. Both waited. And it seemed to both that the water was slow in coming aboard. But the water came. It came slowly, perhaps—but surely. It rose to Bagg's shoulders—to his chin—it seemed to be about to cover his mouth and nostrils. Bagg already had a stifled sensation—a frantic fear of smothering; a wish to breathe deep. But he did not stir; he could not rise.

The boys felt a slight shock. The water rose no more. There was a moment of deep silence.

"I—I—I 'low we've grounded!" Jimmie Grimm stuttered.

The silence continued.

"We sure is!" Jimmie cried.

"Wh-wh-where 'ave we got to?" Bagg gasped, his teeth chattering with the fright that was not yet passed.

Silence again.

"Ahoy, there!" came a voice from near at hand in the foggy night. "What you boys doin' out there?"

"We're in Burnt Cove," said Jimmie, in amazement, to Bagg. "'Tis Uncle Zeke's voice—an', ay, look!—there's the cottage light on the hill."

"We're comin' ashore, Uncle Zeke," Bagg shouted.

The boat had grounded in less than three feet of water. Jimmie had brought her through the tickle without knowing it. The boys emptied her and dragged her ashore just as the rain and wind came rushing from the open sea.

That's why Jimmie used to say with a laugh:

"Sixty seconds sometimes makes more than a minute."

"Bet yer life!" Bagg would add.



CHAPTER XVI

In Which Archie Armstrong Joins a Piratical Expedition and Sails Crested Seas to Cut Out the Schooner "Heavenly Home"

It was quite true that Archie Armstrong could speak French; it was just as true, as Bill o' Burnt Bay observed, that he could jabber it like a native. There was no detecting a false accent. There was no hint of an awkward Anglo-Saxon tongue in his speech. There was no telling that he was not French born and Paris bred. Archie's French nurse and cosmopolitan-English tutor had taken care of that. The boy had pattered French with the former since he had first begun to prattle at all.

And this was why Bill o' Burnt Bay proposed a piratical expedition to the French islands of Miquelon which lie off the south coast of Newfoundland.

"Won't ye go, b'y?" he pleaded.

Archie laughed until his sides ached.

"Come, now!" Bill urged; "there's like t' be a bit of a shindy that Sir Archibald hisself would be glad t' have a hand in."

"'Tis sheer piracy!" Archie chuckled.

"'Tis nothin' of the sort!" the indignant Skipper William protested. "'Tis but a poor man takin' his own from thieves an' robbers."

"Have you ever been to Saint Pierre?" Archie asked.

"That I has!" Skipper Bill ejaculated; "an' much t' the grief o' Saint Pierre."

"They've a jail there, I'm told."

"Sure 'tis like home t' me," said Skipper Bill. "I've been in it; an' I'm told they've an eye open t' clap me in once more."

Archie laughed again.

"Jus' t' help a poor man take back his own without troublin' the judges," Bill urged.

The lad hesitated.

"Sure, I've sore need o' your limber French tongue," said Bill. "Sure, b'y, you'll go along with me, will you not?"

"Why don't you go to law for your own?" Archie asked, with a little grin.

"Law!" Bill o' Burnt Bay burst out. "'Tis a poor show I'd have in a court at Saint Pierre. Hut!" he snorted. "Law!—for a Newfoundlander in Saint Pierre!"

"My father——" Archie began.

"I'll have the help o' no man's money nor brains nor influence in a business so simple," Bill protested.

The situation was this: Bill o' Burnt Bay had chartered a schooner—his antique schooner—the schooner that was forever on the point of sinking with all hands—Bill had chartered the schooner Heavenly Home to Luke Foremast of Boney Arm to run a cargo from Saint Pierre. But no sooner had the schooner appeared in French waters than she was impounded for a debt that Luke Foremast unhappily owed Garnot & Cie, of Saint Pierre. It was a high-handed proceeding, of course; and it was perhaps undertaken without scruple because of the unpopularity of all Newfoundlanders.

Luke Foremast protested in an Anglo-Saxon roar; but roar and bellow and bark and growl as he would, it made no difference: the Heavenly Home was seized, condemned and offered for sale, as Bill o' Burnt Bay had but now learned.

"'Tis a hard thing to do," Archie objected.

"Hut!" Bill exclaimed. "'Tis nothin' but goin' aboard in the dark an' puttin' quietly out t' sea."

"Anyhow," Archie laughed, "I'll go."

Sir Archibald Armstrong liked to have his son stand upon his own feet. He did not wish to be unduly troubled with requests for permission; he fancied it a babyish habit for a well-grown boy to fall into. The boy should decide for himself, said he, where decision was reasonably possible for him; and if he made mistakes he would surely pay for them and learn caution and wisdom. For this reason Archie had no hesitation in coming to his own decision and immediately setting out with Bill o' Burnt Bay upon an expedition which promised a good deal of highly diverting and wholly unusual experience.

Billy Topsail and Jimmie Grimm wished the expedition luck when it boarded the mail-boat that night.

* * * * *

Archie Armstrong did not know until they were well started that Bill o' Burnt Bay was a marked man in Saint Pierre. There was no price on his head, to be sure, but he was answerable for several offenses which would pass current in St. John's for assault and battery, if not for assault with intent to maim or kill (which Bill had never tried to do)—all committed in those old days when he was young and wild and loved a ruction better than a prayer-meeting.

They determined to make a landing by stealth—a wise precaution, as it appeared to Archie. So in three days they were at La Maline, a small fishing harbour on the south coast of Newfoundland, and a port of call for the Placentia Bay mail-boat. The Iles Saint Pierre et Miquelon, the remnant of the western empire of the French, lay some twenty miles to the southwest, across a channel which at best is of uncertain mood, and on this day was as forbidding a waste of waves and gray clouds as it had been Archie's lot to venture out upon.

Bill o' Burnt Bay had picked up his ideal of a craft for the passage—a skiff so cheap and rotten that "'twould be small loss, sir, if she sank under us." And the skipper was in a roaring good humour as with all sail set he drove the old hulk through that wilderness of crested seas; and big Josiah Cove, who had been taken along to help sail the Heavenly Home, as he swung the bail bucket, was not a whit behind in glowing expectation—in particular, that expectation which concerned an encounter with a gendarme with whom he had had the misfortune to exchange nothing but words upon a former occasion.

As for Archie, at times he felt like a smuggler, and capped himself in fancy with a red turban, at times like a pirate.

* * * * *

They made Saint Pierre at dusk—dusk of a thick night, with the wind blowing half a gale from the east. They had no mind to subject themselves to those formalities which might precipitate embarrassing disclosures; so they ran up the harbour as inconspicuously as might be, all the while keeping a covert lookout for the skinny old craft which they had come to cut out. The fog, drifting in as they proceeded, added its shelter to that of the night; and they dared to make a search.

They found her at last, lying at anchor in the isolation of government waters—a most advantageous circumstance.

"Take the skiff 'longside, skipper," said Josiah.

"'Tis a bit risky, Josiah, b'y," said Skipper Bill. "But 'twould be good—now, really, 'twould—'twould be good t' tread her old deck for a spell."

"An' lay a hand to her wheel," said Josiah, with a side wink so broad that the darkening mist could not hide it.

"An' lay a hand to her wheel," repeated the skipper. "An' lay a hand to her wheel!"

They ran in—full into the lee of her—and rounded to under the stern. The sails of the skiff flapped noisily and the water slapped her sides. They rested breathless—waiting an event which might warn them to be off into hiding in the fog. But no disquieting sound came from the schooner—no startled exclamation, no hail, no footfall: nothing but the creaking of the anchor chain and the rattle of the blocks aloft. A schooner loomed up and shot past like a shadow; then silence.

Archie gave a low hail in French. There was no response from the Heavenly Home; nor did a second hail, in a raised voice, bring forth an answering sound. It was all silent and dark aboard. So Skipper Bill reached out with the gaff and drew the boat up the lee side. He chuckled a bit and shook himself. It seemed to Archie that he freed his arms and loosened his great muscles as for a fight. With a second chuckle he caught the rail, leaped from the skiff like a cat and rolled over on the deck of his own schooner.

They heard the thud of his fall—a muttered word or two, mixed up with laughter—then the soft fall of his feet departing aft. For a long time nothing occurred to inform them of what the skipper was about. They strained their ears. In the end they heard a muffled cry, which seemed to come out of the shoreward cloud of fog—a thud, as though coming from a great distance—and nothing more.

"What's that?" Archie whispered.

"'Tis a row aboard a Frenchman t' win'ard, sir," said Josiah. "'Tis a skipper beatin' a 'prentice. They does it a wonderful lot."

Five minutes passed without a sign of the skipper. Then he came forward on a run. His feet rang on the deck. There was no concealment.

"I've trussed up the watchman!" he chortled.

Archie and Josiah clambered aboard.



CHAPTER XVII

In Which Bill o' Burnt Bay Finds Himself in Jail and Archie Armstrong Discovers That Reality is Not as Diverting as Romance

To be sure, Bill o' Burnt Bay had overcome the watchman! He had blundered upon him in the cabin. Being observed before he could withdraw, he had leaped upon this functionary with resistless impetuosity—had overpowered him, gagged him, trussed him like a turkey cock and rolled him into his bunk. The waters roundabout gave no sign of having been apprised of the capture. No cry of surprise rang out—no call for help—no hullabaloo of pursuit. The lights of the old town twinkled in the foggy night in undisturbed serenity.

The night was thick, and the wind swept furiously up from the sea. It would be a dead beat to windward to make the open—a sharp beat through a rock-strewn channel in a rising gale.

"Now we got her," Skipper Bill laughed, "what'll we do with her?"

Archie and Josiah laughed, too: a hearty explosion.

"We can never beat out in this wind," said Bill; "an' we couldn't handle her if we did—not in a gale o' wind like this. All along," he chuckled, "I been 'lowin' for a fair wind an' good weather."

They heard the rattle and creak of oars approaching; to which, in a few minutes, the voices of two men added a poignant interest. The rowers rested on their oars, as though looking about; then the oars splashed the water again, and the dory shot towards the Heavenly Home. Bill o' Burnt Bay and his fellow pirates lay flat on the deck. The boat hung off the stern of the schooner.

"Jean!"

The hail was in French. It was not answered, you may be sure, from the Heavenly Home.

"Jean!"

"He's not aboard," spoke up the other man.

"He must be aboard. His dory's tied to the rail. Jean! Jean Morot!"

"Come—let's be off to the Voyageur. He's asleep." A pair of oars fell in the water.

"Come—take your oars. It's too rough to lie here. And it's late enough."

"But——"

"Take your oars!" with an oath.

The Newfoundlanders breathed easier when they heard the splash and creak and rattle receding; but they did not rise until the sounds were out of hearing, presumably in the direction of the Voyageur.

* * * * *

Bill o' Burnt Bay began to laugh again. Archie joined him. But Josiah Cove pointed out the necessity of doing something—anything—and doing it quickly. It was all very well to laugh, said he; and although it might seem a comical thing to be standing on the deck of a captured schooner, the comedy would be the Frenchman's if they were caught in the act. But Archie still chuckled away; the situation was quite too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Archie had never been a pirate before; he didn't feel like one now—but he rather liked the feeling he had.

"We can't stay aboard," said he, presently.

"Blest if I want t' go ashore," said Bill.

"We got t' go ashore," Josiah put in.

Before they left the deck of the Heavenly Home (the watchman having then been made more comfortable), it was agreed that the schooner could not make the open sea in the teeth of the wind. That was obvious; and it was just as obvious that the Newfoundlander could not stay aboard. The discovery of the watchman in the cabin must be chanced until such a time as a fair wind came in the night. On their way to the obscure wharf at which they landed it was determined that Josiah should board the schooner at nine o'clock, noon, and six o'clock of the next day to feed the captured watchman and to set the galley fire going for half an hour to allay suspicion.

"An' Skipper Bill," said Josiah, seriously, "you lie low. If you don't you're liable to be took up."

"Take your advice t' yourself," the skipper retorted. "Your reputation's none o' the best in this harbour."

"We'll sail to-morrow night," said Archie.

"Given a dark night an' a fair wind," the skipper qualified.

Skipper Bill made his way to a quiet cafe of his acquaintance; and Josiah vanished in the fog to lie hidden with a shipmate of other days. Archie—depending upon his youth and air and accent and well-tailored dress to avert suspicion—went boldly to the Hotel Joinville and sat down to dinner. The dinner was good; he enjoyed it, and was presently delighting in the romance in which he had a part. It all seemed too good to be true. How glad he was he had come! To be here—in the French Islands of Miquelon—to have captured a schooner—to have a prisoner in the cabin—to be about to run off with the Heavenly Home. For the life of him, Archie could not take the thing seriously. He chuckled—and chuckled—and chuckled again.

Presently he walked abroad; and in the quaint streets and old customs of the little town, here remote from all the things of the present and of the new world as we know it in this day, he found that which soon lifted him into a dream of times long past and of doughty deeds for honour and a lady. Soft voices in the streets, forms flitting from shadow to shadow, priest and strutting gendarme and veiled lady, gabled roofs, barred windows, low doorways, the clatter of sabots, the pendant street lights, the rumble of the ten o'clock drums. These things, seen in a mist, were all of the days when bold ventures were made—of those days when a brave man would recover his own, come what might, if it had been wrongfully wrested from him. It was a rare dream—and not broken until he turned into the Quai de la Ronciere.

As he rounded the corner he was almost knocked from his feet by a burly fellow in a Basque cap who was breathless with haste.

"Monsieur—if he will pardon—it was not——" this fellow stammered, apologetically.

Men were hurrying past toward the Cafe d'Espoir, appearing everywhere from the mist and running with the speed of deep excitement. There was a clamorous crowd about the door—pushing, scuffling, shouting.

"What has happened?" Archie asked in French.

"An American has killed a gendarme, monsieur. A ter-rible fellow! Oh, fear-r-rful!"

"And why—what——"

"He was a ter-rible fellow, monsieur. The gendarmes have been on the lookout for him for three years. And when they laid hands on him he fought, monsieur—fought with the strength of a savage. It took five gendarmes to bind him—five, monsieur. Poor Louis Arnot! He is dead—killed, monsieur, by a pig of an American with his fist. They are to take the murderer to the jail. I am just now running to warn Deschamps to make ready the dungeon cell. If monsieur will but excuse me, I will——"

He was off; so Archie joined the crowd at the door of the cafe, which was that place to which Skipper Bill had repaired to hide. He hung on the outskirts of the crowd, unable to push his way further. The wrath of these folk was so noisy that he could catch no word of what went on within. He devoutly hoped that Skipper Bill had kept to his hiding-place despite the suspicious sounds in the cafe. Then he wormed his way to the door and entered. A moment later he had climbed on a barrel and was overlooking the squirming crowd and eagerly listening to the clamour. Above every sound—above the cries and clatter and gabble—rang the fighting English of Bill o' Burnt Bay.

It was no American; it was Skipper Bill whom the gendarmes had taken, and he was now so seriously involved, apparently, that his worst enemies could wish him no deeper in the mesh. They had him bound hand and foot and guarded with drawn swords, fearing, probably, that somewhere he had a crew of wild fellows at his back to make a rescue. To attempt a rescue was not to be thought of. It did not enter the boy's head. He was overcome by grief and terror. He withdrew into a shadow until they had carried Skipper Bill out with a crowd yelping at his heels. Then, white and shaking, he went to a group in the corner where Louis Arnot, the gendarme, was stretched out on the floor.

Archie touched the surgeon on the shoulder. "Is he dead?" the boy asked, in French, his voice trembling.

"No, monsieur; he is alive."

"Will he live?"

"To be sure, monsieur!"

"Is there any doubt about it?" asked Archie.

"Doubt?" exclaimed the surgeon. "With my skill, monsieur? It is impossible—he cannot die! He will be restored in three days. I—I—I will accomplish it!"

"Thank God for that!" thought Archie.

The boy went gravely home to bed; and as he lay down the adventure seemed less romantic than it had.



CHAPTER XVIII

In Which Archie Inspects an Opera Bouffe Dungeon Jail, Where He Makes the Acquaintance of Dust, Dry Rot and Deschamps. In Which, Also, Skipper Bill o' Burnt Bay Is Advised to Howl Until His Throat Cracks

In the morning Archie went as a tourist to the jail where Bill o' Burnt Bay was confined. The wind was blowing fresh from the west and promised to hold true for the day. It was a fair, strong wind for the outward bound craft; but Archie Armstrong had no longer any interest in the wind or in the Heavenly Home. He was interested in captives and cells. To his astonishment he found that the Saint Pierre jail had been designed chiefly with the idea of impressing the beholder, and was builded long, long ago.

It was a low-walled structure situate in a quiet quarter of the town. The outer walls were exceeding thick. One might work with a pick and shovel for a week and never tunnel them.

"But," thought Archie, "why tunnel them when it is possible to leap over them?"

They were jagged on top and strewn with bits of broken bottle imbedded in the mortar.

"But," thought Archie, "why cut one's hands when it is so easy to throw a jacket over the glass and save the pain?"

The walls apparently served no good purpose except to frighten the populace with their frowns.

* * * * *

As big Deschamps, the jailer, led Archie through the musty corridors and cells the boy perceived that the old building had long ago gone to wrack. It was a place of rust and dust and dry rot, of crumbling masonry, of rotted casements, of rust-eaten bars, of creaking hinges and broken locks. He had the impression that a strong man could break in the doors with his fist and tumble the walls about his ears with a push.

"This way, monsieur," said Deschamps, at last. "Come! I will show you the pig of a Newfoundlander who half killed a gendarme. He is a terrible fellow."

He had Skipper Bill safe enough—thrown into a foul-aired, windowless cell with an iron-bound door, from which there was no escape. To release him was impossible, whatever the condition of the jail in other parts. Archie had hoped to find a way; but when he saw the cell in which Skipper Bill was confined he gave up all idea of a rescue. And at that moment the skipper came to the narrow grating in the door. He scowled at the jailer and looked the boy over blankly.

"Pah!" exclaimed Deschamps, screwing his face into a look of disgust.

"You wait 'til I cotches you!" the skipper growled.

"What does the pig say, monsieur?" Deschamps asked.

"He has not yet repented," Archie replied, evasively.

"Pah!" said Deschamps again. "Come, monsieur; we shall continue the inspection."

Archie was taken to the furthermost cell of the corridor. It was isolated from that part of the building where the jailer had his living quarters, and it was a light, roomy place on the ground floor. The window bars were rusted thin and the masonry in which they were sunk was falling away. It seemed to Archie that he himself could wrench the bars away with his hands; but he found that he could not when he tried them. He looked out; and what he saw made him regret that Skipper Bill had not been confined in that particular cell.

"This cell, monsieur," said Deschamps, importantly, "is where I confine the drunken Newfoundland sailors when——"

Archie looked up with interest.

"When they make a great noise, monsieur," Deschamps concluded. "I have the headache," he explained. "So bad and so often I have the headache, monsieur. I cannot bear the great noise they make. It is fearful. So I put them here, and I go to sleep, and they do not trouble me at all."

"Is monsieur in earnest?" Archie asked.

Deschamps was flattered by this form of address from a young gentleman. "It is true," he replied. "Compelled. That is the word. I am compelled to confine them here."

"Let us return to the Newfoundlander," said Archie.

"He is a pig," Deschamps agreed, "and well worth looking at."

When they came to the door of Skipper Bill's cell, Archie was endeavouring to evolve a plan for having a word with him without exciting Deschamps' suspicion. The jailer saved him the trouble.

"Monsieur is an American," said Deschamps. "Will he not tell the pig of a Newfoundlander that he shall have no breakfast?"

"Skipper Bill," said Archie, in English, "when I leave here you howl until your throat cracks."

Bill o' Burnt Bay nodded. "How's the wind?" he asked.

"What does the pig of a Newfoundlander say?" Deschamps inquired.

"It is of no importance," Archie replied.

When Archie had inspected the guillotine in the garret, which Deschamps exhibited to every visitor with great pride, the jailer led him to the open air.

"Do the prisoners never escape?" Archie asked.

"Escape!" Deschamps cried, with reproach and indignation. "Monsieur, how could you suggest it? Escape! From me—from me, monsieur!" He struck his breast and extended his arms. "Ah, no—they could not! My bravery, monsieur—my strength—all the world knows of them. I am famous, monsieur. Deschamps, the wrestler! Escape! From me! Ah, no—it is impossible!"

When Archie had more closely observed his gigantic form, his broad, muscular chest, his mighty arms and thick neck, his large, lowering face—when he had observed all this he fancied that a man might as well wrestle with a grizzly as oppose him, for it would come to the same thing in the end.

"You are a strong man," Archie admitted.

"Thanks—thanks—monsieur!" the delighted Deschamps responded.

At that moment, a long, dismal howl broke the quiet. It was repeated even more excruciatingly.

"The pig of a Newfoundlander!" groaned Deschamps. "My head! It is fearful. He will give me the headache."

Archie departed. He was angry with Deschamps for having called Newfoundlanders pigs. After all, he determined, angrily, the jailer was deserving of small sympathy.



CHAPTER XIX

In Which Archie Armstrong Goes Deeper In and Thinks He Has Got Beyond His Depth. Bill o' Burnt Bay Takes Deschamps By the Throat and the Issue Is Doubtful For a Time

That afternoon, after a short conversation with Josiah Cove, who had thus far managed to keep out of trouble, Archie Armstrong spent a brief time on the Heavenly Home to attend to the health and comfort of the watchman, who was in no bad way. Perhaps, after all, Archie thought—if Deschamps' headache would only cause the removal of Bill o' Burnt Bay to the dilapidated cell on the ground floor—the Heavenly Home might yet be sailed in triumph to Ruddy Cove. He strutted the deck, when necessary, with as much of the insolence of a civic official as he could command, and no man came near to question his right. When the watchman's friends came from the Voyageur he drove them away in excellent French. They went meekly and with apologies for having disturbed him.

"So far, well enough," thought Archie, as he rowed ashore, glad to be off the schooner.

It was after dark when, by appointment, the lad met Josiah. Josiah had provided himself with a crowbar and a short length of line, which he said would be sure to come useful, for he had always found it so. Then the two set off for the jail together, and there arrived some time after the drums had warned all good people to be within doors.

"What's that?" said Josiah of a sudden.

It was a hoarse, melancholy croak proceeding from the other side of the wall. The skipper's cell had been changed, as Archie had hoped, and the skipper himself was doing his duty to the bitter end. The street was deserted. They acted quickly. Josiah gave Archie a leg. He threw his jacket over the broken glass and mounted the wall. Josiah made off at once; it was his duty to have the skiff in readiness. Archie dropped into the garden.

"Is that you, b'y?" whispered Skipper Bill.

Again Archie once more found it impossible to take the adventure seriously. He began to laugh. It was far too much like the romances he had read to be real. It was play, it seemed—just like a game of smugglers and pirates, played on a summer's afternoon.

"Is it you, Archie?" the skipper whispered again.

Archie chuckled aloud.

"Is the wind in the west?" the skipper asked.

"Ay," Archie replied; "and blowing a smart sailing breeze."

"Haste, then, lad!" said the skipper. "'Tis time t' be off for Ruddy Cove."

The window was low. With his crowbar Archie wrenched a bar from its socket. It came with a great clatter. It made the boy's blood run cold to hear the noise. He pried the second and it yielded. Down fell a block of stone with a crash. While he was feeling for a purchase on the third bar Skipper Bill caught his wrist.

"Hist, lad!"

It was a footfall in the corridor. Skipper Bill slipped into the darkness by the door—vanished like a shadow. Archie dropped to the ground. By what unhappy chance had Deschamps come upon this visitation? Could it have been the silence of Skipper Bill? Archie heard the cover of the grating drawn away from the peep-hole in the door.

"He's gone!"

That was Deschamps' voice. Doubtless he had observed that two bars were missing from the window. Archie heard the key slipped into the lock and the door creak on its hinges. All the time he knew that Skipper Bill was crouched in the shadow—poised for the spring. The boy no longer thought of the predicament as a game. Nor was he inclined to laugh again. This was the ugly reality once more come to face him. There would be a fight in the cell. This he knew. And he waited in terror of the issue.

There was a quick step—a crash—a quick-drawn breath—the noise of a shock—a cry—a groan. Skipper Bill had kicked the door to and leaped upon the jailer. Archie pried the third bar out and broke the fourth with a blow. Then he squirmed through the window. Even in that dim light—half the night light without—he could see that the struggle was over. Skipper Bill had Deschamps by the throat with his great right hand. He had the jailer's waist in his left arm as in a vise, and was forcing his head back—back—back—until Archie thought the Frenchman's spine would crack.

"Don't kill him!" Archie cried.

Skipper Bill had no intention of doing so; nor had Deschamps, the wrestler, any idea of allowing his back to be broken.

"Don't kill him!" Archie begged again.

Deschamps was tugging at that right arm of iron—weakly, vainly tugging to wrench it away from his throat. His eyes were starting from their sockets, and his tongue protruded. Back went the head—back—back! The arm was pitiless. Back—back! He was fordone. In a moment his strength departed and he collapsed. He had not had time to call for help, so quick had been Bill's hand. They bound his limp body with the length of line Josiah had brought, and they had no sooner bound him than he revived.

"You are a great man, monsieur," he mumbled. "You have vanquished me—Deschamps! You will be famous—famous, monsieur. I shall send my resignation to His Excellency the Governor to-morrow. Deschamps—he is vanquished!"

"What's he talkin' about?" the skipper panted.

"You have beaten him."

"Let's be off, b'y," the skipper gasped.

They locked the door on the inside, clambered through the window and scaled the wall. They sped through the deserted streets with all haste. They came to the landing-place and found the skiff tugging at her painter with her sails all unfurled. Presently they were under way for the Heavenly Home, and, having come safely aboard, hauled up the mainsail, set the jib and were about to slip the anchor. Then they heard the clang, clang, clang of a bell—a warning clang, clang, clang, which could mean but one thing: discovery.

"Fetch up that Frenchman," the skipper roared.

The watchman was loosed and brought on deck.

"Put un in his dory and cast off," the skipper ordered.

This done the anchor was slipped and the sheets hauled taut. The rest of the canvas was shaken out and the Heavenly Home gathered way and fairly flew for the open sea.

* * * * *

If there was pursuit it did not come within sight. The old schooner came safely to Ruddy Cove, where Bill o' Burnt Bay, Josiah Cove and Archie Armstrong lived for a time in sickening fear of discovery and arrest. But nothing was ever heard from Saint Pierre. The Heavenly Home had been unlawfully seized by the French; perhaps that is why the Ruddy Cove pirates heard no more of the Miquelon escapade. There was hardly good ground in the circumstances for complaint to the Newfoundland government. At any rate, Archie wrote a full and true statement of the adventure to his father in St. John's; and his father replied that his letter had been received and "contents noted."

There was no chiding; and Archie breathed easier after he had read the letter.



CHAPTER XX

In Which David Grey's Friend, the Son of the Factor at Fort Red Wing, Yarns of the Professor With the Broken Leg, a Stretch of Rotten River Ice and the Tug of a White Rushing Current

One quiet evening, after sunset, in the early summer, when the folk of Ruddy Cove were passing time in gossip on the wharf, while they awaited the coming of the mail-boat, old David Grey, who had told the tale of McLeod and the tomahawks, called to Billy Topsail and his friends. A bronzed, pleasant-appearing man, David's friend, shook hands with the boys with the grip of a woodsman. Presently he drifted into a tale of his own boyhood at Fort Red Wing in the wilderness far back of Quebec. "You see," said he, "my father had never fallen into the habit of coddling me. So when the lost Hudson Bay Geological Expedition made Fort Red Wing in the spring—every man exhausted, except the young professor, who had broken a leg a month back, and had set it with his own hands—it was the most natural thing in the world that my father should command me to take the news to Little Lake, whence it might be carried, from post to post, all the way to the department at Ottawa.

"'And send the company doctor up,' said he. 'The little professor's leg is in a bad way, if I know anything about doctoring. So you'll make what haste you can.'

"'Yes, sir,' said I.

"'Keep to the river until you come to the Great Bend. You can take the trail through the bush from there to Swift Rapids. If the ice is broken at the rapids, you'll have to go round the mountain. That'll take a good half day longer. But don't be rash at the rapids, and keep an eye on the ice all along. The sun will be rotting it by day now. It looks like a break-up already.'

"'Shall I go alone, sir?' said I.

"'No,' said my father, no doubt perceiving the wish in the question. 'I'll have John go with you for company.'

"John was an Indian lad of my own age, or thereabouts, who had been brought up at the fort—my companion and friend. I doubt if I shall ever find a stancher one.

"With him at my heels and a little packet of letters in my breast pocket, I set out early the next day. It was late in March, and the sun, as the day advanced, grew uncomfortably hot.

"'Here's easy going!' I cried, when we came to the river.

"'Bad ice!' John grunted.

"And it proved to be so—ice which the suns of clear weather had rotted and the frosts of night and cold days had not repaired. Rotten patches alternated with spaces of open water and of thin ice, which the heavy frost of the night before had formed.

"When we came near to Great Bend, where we were to take to the woods, it was late in the afternoon, and the day was beginning to turn cold.

"We sped on even more cautiously, for in that place the current is swift, and we knew that the water was running like mad below us. I was ahead of John, picking the way; and I found, to my cost, that the way was unsafe. In a venture offshore I risked too much. Of a sudden the ice let me through.

"It was like a fall, feet foremost, and when I came again to the possession of my faculties, with the passing of the shock, I found that my arms were beating the edge of ice, which crumbled before them, and that the current was tugging mightily at my legs.

"'Look out!' I gasped.

"The warning was neither heard nor needed. John was flat on his stomach, worming his way towards me—wriggling slowly out, his eyes glistening.

"Meanwhile I had rested my arms on the edge, which then crumbled no more; but I was helpless to save myself, for the current had sucked my legs under the ice, and now held them securely there, sweeping them from side to side, all the while tugging as if to wrench me from my hold. The most I could do was to resist the pull, to grit my teeth and cling to the advantage I had. It was for John to make the rescue.

"There was an ominous crack from John's direction. When I turned my eyes to look he was lying still. Then I saw him wriggle out of danger, backing away like a crab.

"'John!' I screamed.

"The appeal seemed not to move him. He continued to wriggle from me. When he came to solid ice he took to his heels. I caught sight of him as he climbed the bank, and kept my eyes upon him until he disappeared over the crest. He had left me without a word.

"The water was cold and swift, and the strength of my arms and back was wearing out. The current kept tugging, and I realized, loath as I was to admit it, that half an hour would find me slipping under the ice. It was a grave mistake to admit it; for at once fancy began to paint ugly pictures for me, and the probabilities, as it presented them, soon flustered me almost beyond recovery.

"'I was chest-high out of the water,' I told myself. 'Chest-high! Now my chin is within four inches of the ice. I've lost three inches. I'm lost!'

"With that I tried to release my feet from the clutch of the current, to kick myself back to an upright position, to lift myself out. It was all worse than vain. The water was running so swiftly that it dangled my legs as it willed, and the rotten ice momentarily threatened to let me through.

"I lost a full inch of position. So I settled myself to wait for what might come, determined to yield nothing through terror or despair. My eyes were fixed stupidly upon the bend in the river, far down, where a spruce-clothed bluff was melting with the dusk.

"What with the cold and the drain upon my physical strength, it may be that my mind was a blank when relief came. At any rate, it seemed to have been an infinitely long time in coming; and it was with a shock that John's words restored me to a vivid consciousness of my situation.

"'Catch hold!' said he.

"He had crawled near me, although I had not known of his approach, and he was thrusting towards me the end of a long pole, which he had cut in the bush. It was long, but not long enough. I reached for it, but my hand came three feet short of grasping it.

"John grunted and crept nearer. Still it was beyond me, and he dared venture no farther. He withdrew the pole; then he crept back and unfastened his belt. Working deliberately but swiftly, he bound the belt to the end of the pole, and came out again. He cast the belt within reach, as a fisherman casts a line. I caught it, clutched it, and was hauled from my predicament by main strength.

"'John,' I said, as we drew near to the half-way cabin, 'I know your blood, and it's all very well to be careful not to say too much; but there's such a thing as saying too little. Why didn't you tell me where you were going when you started for that pole?'

"'Huh!' said John, as if his faithfulness to me in every fortune were quite beyond suspicion.

"'Yes, I know,' I insisted, 'but a word or two would have saved me a deal of uneasiness.'

"'Huh!' said he."



CHAPTER XXI

In Which a Bearer of Tidings Finds Himself In Peril of His Life On a Ledge of Ice Above a Roaring Rapid

"We passed that night at the cabin, where a roaring fire warmed me and dried my clothes," David's friend continued. "My packet of letters was safe and dry, so I slept in peace, and we were both as chirpy as sparrows when we set out the next morning. It was a clear, still day, with the sun falling warmly upon us.

"Our way now led through the bush for mile after mile—little hills and stony ground and swamp-land. By noon we were wet to the knees; but this circumstance was then too insignificant for remark, although later it gave me the narrowest chance for life that ever came within my experience.

"We made Swift Rapids late in the afternoon, when the sun was low and a frosty wind was freezing the pools by the way. The post at Little Lake lay not more than three miles beyond the foot of the rapids, and when the swish and roar of water first fell upon our ears we hallooed most joyfully, for it seemed to us that we had come within reaching distance of our destination.

"'No,' said John, when we stood on the shore of the river.

"'I think we can,' said I.

"'No,' he repeated.

"The rapids were clear of ice, which had broken from the quiet water above the verge of the descent, and now lay heaped up from shore to shore, where the current subsided at the foot. The water was most turbulent—swirling, shooting, foaming over great boulders. It went rushing between two high cliffs, foaming to the very feet of them, where not an inch of bank was showing. At first glance it was no thoroughfare; but the only alternative was to go round the mountain, as my father had said, and I had no fancy to lengthen my journey by four hours, so I searched the shore carefully for a passage.

"The face of the cliff was such that we could make our way one hundred yards down-stream. It was just beyond that point that the difficulty lay. The rock jutted into the river, and rose sheer from it; neither foothold nor handhold was offered. But beyond, as I knew, it would be easy enough to clamber along the cliff, which was shelving and broken, and so, at last, come to the trail again.

"'There's the trouble, John,' said I, pointing to the jutting rock. 'If we can get round that, we can go the rest of the way without any difficulty.'

"'No go,' said John. 'Come.'

"He jerked his head towards the bush, but I was not to be easily persuaded.

"'We'll go down and look at that place,' I replied. 'There may be a way.'

"There was a way, a clear, easy way, requiring no more than a bit of nerve to pass over it, and I congratulated myself upon persisting to its discovery. The path was by a stout ledge of ice, adhering to the cliff and projecting out from it for about eighteen inches. The river had fallen. This ledge had been formed when it was at its highest, and when the water had subsided the ice had been left sticking to the rock. The ledge was like the rim of ice that adheres to a tub when a bucketful of freezing water has been taken out.

"I clambered down to it, sounded it, and found it solid. Moreover, it seemed to lead all the way round, broadening and narrowing as it went, but wide enough in every part. I was sure-footed and unafraid, so at once I determined to essay the passage. 'I am going to try it!' I called to John, who was clinging to the cliff some yards behind and above me. 'Don't follow until I call you.'

"'Look out!' said he.

"'Oh, it's all right,' I said, confidently.

"I turned my back to the rock and moved out, stepping sidewise. It was not difficult until I came to a point where the cliff is overhanging—it may be a space of twelve feet or less; then I had to stoop, and the awkward position made my situation precarious in the extreme, for the rock seemed all the while bent on thrusting me off.

"The river was roaring past. Below me the water was breaking over a great rock, whence it shot, swift and strong, against a boulder which rose above it. I could hear the hiss and swish and thunder of it; and had I been less confident in my foothold, I might then and there have been hopelessly unnerved. There was no mercy in those seething rapids.

"'A fall would be the end of me,' I thought; 'but I will not fall.'

"Fall I did, however, and that suddenly, just after I had rounded the point and was hidden from John's sight. The cold of the late afternoon had frozen my boots stiff; they had been soaked in the swamp-lands, and the water was now all turned to ice.

"My soles were slippery and my feet were awkwardly managed. I slipped.

"My feet shot from under me. A flash of terror went through me. Then I found myself lying on my hip, on the edge of the shelf with my legs dangling over the rapids, my shoulder pressing the cliff, my hands flat on the ice, and my arms sustaining nearly the whole weight of my body.

"At that instant I heard a thud and a splash, as of something striking the water, and turning my eyes, I perceived that a section of the snow ledge had fallen from the cliff. It was not large, but it was between John and me, and the space effectually shut him off from my assistance.

"My problem was to get to my feet again. But how? The first effort persuaded me that it was impossible. My shoulder was against the cliff. When I attempted to raise myself to a seat on the ledge I succeeded only in pressing my shoulder more firmly against the rock. Wriggle as I would, the wall behind kept me where I was. I could not gain an inch. I needed no more, for that would have relieved my arms by throwing more of my weight upon my hips.

"I was in the position of a boy trying to draw himself to a seat on a window-sill, with the difference that my heels were of no help to me, for they were dangling in space. My arms were fast tiring out. The inch I needed for relief was past gaining, and it seemed to me then that in a moment my arms would fail me, and I should slip off into the river.

"'Better go now,' I thought, 'before my arms are worn out altogether. I'll need them for swimming.'

"But a glance down the river assured me that my chance in the rapids would be of the smallest. Not only was the water swift and turbulent, but it ran against the barrier of ice at the foot of the rapids, and it was evident that it would suck me under, once it got me there.

"Nor was there any hope in John's presence. I had told him to stay where he was until I called; and, to be sure, in that spot would he stay. I might call now. But to what purpose? He could do nothing to help me. He would come to the gap in the ledge, and from there peep sympathetically at me. Indeed, he might reach a pole to me, as he had done on the day before, but my hands were fully occupied, and I could not grasp it. So I put John out of my mind,—for even in the experience of the previous day I had not yet learned my lesson,—and determined to follow the only course which lay open to me, desperate though it was.