A crouching form with hideous face now emerged from behind the bush; step by step, this human panther advanced. A slow, cautious, catlike movement, without sound, as each moccasined foot touched the sand. Nearer and nearer that unconscious girl it crept! Now twenty feet away, now ten, now five!
And now came a swift rush, two fierce hands enclosed the girl’s face and drew her backward on to the sand.
Ray and the hermit were beside the fire, and the Indian just emerging from the hut where he had slept, when Old Cy returned from the ice-house.
“Where’s Chip?” he questioned.
“Gone after water,” answered Ray. And the two glanced down the path.
One, two, five minutes elapsed, and then a sudden suspicion of something wrong came to Old Cy, and, followed by Ray, he hurried to the landing.
One pail of water stood on the float, both their canoes were adrift on the lake, and as Old Cy looked out, there, heading for the outlet, was a canoe!
One swift glance and, “My God, he’s got Chip!” told the story, and with face fierce in anger, he darted back, grasped his rifle, and returned.
The canoe, its paddler bending low as he forced it into almost leaps, was scarce two lengths from the outlet.
Old Cy raised his rifle, then lowered it.