"That means rain, and you are going to get wet," said the young woman, as she was preparing to creep under her canvas. An instant later a gusty blast came down the river, threatening to scatter the fire. Prime sprang up at once and began to take the necessary precautions against a conflagration. In the midst of the haste-making he heard his companion say: "We might drag the canoe up here and turn it over so that you could have it for a shelter."
With the fire safely banked they went together to the river's edge to carry out her suggestion. By this time the precursor blast of the shower was lashing the little river into foam, and the spray from the rapid just above them wet their faces. One glance, lightning assisted, at the little beach where they had drawn up the canoe was enough. The birch-bark was gone.
The young woman was the first to find speech. At another lightning-flash she cried out quickly:
"There it is! Don't you see it?—going down the river! The wind is blowing it away!"
Immediately they dashed off in pursuit, stumbling through the forest in darkness, which, between the lightning-flashes, was like a blanketing of invisibility. The race was a short one. One flash showed them the canoe dancing down the raceway of a lower rapid, and at the next it had disappeared.
VII
ROULANT MA BOULE
At the disappearance of the canoe Prime called the halt which the black darkness was insisting upon, and they made their way back in the teeth of the storm to the camp-fire. In a few minutes the summer squall had blown itself out, with scarcely enough rain to make a drip from the trees. Weary as he was, Prime took the axe, searched until he found a pine stump, and from it hewed the material for a couple of torches. With these for light they set out doggedly down-stream in search of their lost hope.