Bang! went a rifle somewhere behind them, and then the rapid crack! crack! crack! of more than one repeater. A bullet clipped through the sides of the canoe, fortunately well above the water-line. Another glanced from a rock, and hummed past them.
As the boys whirled by the ambushed birch canoe, Fred snatched up the shotgun, and sent two loads of buckshot tearing through its sides.
"That'll cripple them for a while!" he cried.
Bang! A better-aimed bullet dashed the steering paddle from Horace's hands. The canoe swerved, and heeled in the current. Horace snatched the extra paddle that lay in the stern, and brought the craft round just in time to prevent it from upsetting. As the paddle that had been hit floated past, Fred picked it up; it had a round hole through the handle.
The canoe was a hundred yards from the tent now, and was going so fast that it offered no easy target to the men behind, who, however, still continued to shoot. Another bullet nicked the stern. Glancing over his shoulder, Fred saw the three trappers running down the shore, and firing as they ran. But in another moment the canoe swept round a bend in the river, and was screened from the trappers by the wooded shore.
"Keep it up! Make all the speed you can!" cried Horace.
Down the fast current they shot like an arrow. As they went round another curve, they heard the roar of rushing water ahead; a short but turbulent rapid confronted them. There the river, foaming and surging, dashed down over the black rocks; the shore was rough and covered with dense thickets. The boys remembered the hard work they had had making a portage here on the way up; but there was no time to make a portage now.
"Down we go! Look sharp for her bow, Mac!" Horace sang out.
The rush of the rapid seemed to snatch up the canoe like a leaf. Fred caught his breath; the pit of his stomach seemed to sink. There was a deafening roar all around him, a chaos of white water, flying spray, and sharp rocks that sprang up and flashed behind. Then, before he had recovered his breath, they shot out into the smooth river below.
Six inches of water was slopping in the bottom of the canoe, but they ran on without stopping to bale it out. For over half a mile the smooth, swift current lasted; then came another rapid. It was longer and more dangerous than the other, and the boys carried the canoe and the foxes round it. They would not risk spilling the precious cage, and for the present they thought that they had outrun their pursuers.