"So would I!" cried Macgregor. "But we won't starve. We didn't starve last winter, when we hadn't a match or a grain of powder, and when the mercury was below zero most of the time, too."
"Well, we'll go on, if you say so," said Horace. "It's a mighty dangerous trip, but I don't see what else we can do."
"Forward it is, then!" cried Fred.
"And hang the risk!" exclaimed Mac, springing up to push the canoe into the water.
"Do you think those men will really follow us, Horace?" asked Fred.
"Sure to," replied his brother. "It'll take them a few hours to patch up their canoe, but they 're probably better canoemen than we are, and we'll have to work mighty hard to keep ahead of them."
Fred was more optimistic. "They'll have to work mighty hard to keep up with us," he said, as they launched the canoe.
Going down the river was very different from coming up it. The current ran so swiftly that the boys could not add much to their speed by paddling; all they had to do was to steer the craft. The water was so high that they could run most of the rapids, and stretches that they had formerly toiled up with tumpline or tracking-line they now covered with the speed of a bullet.
Toward noon Fred became intolerably hungry; but neither of the others spoke of eating, and he did not mention his hunger. Mac, in the bow, put the shotgun where he could easily reach it, and scanned the shores for game as closely as he could; but no game showed itself. They traveled all day without seeing anything except now and then a few ducks, which always took wing while still far out of range.
At last they came to "Buck Rapids," where they had shot the deer. The river there was one succession of rapids, most of which were too dangerous to run through. It was the place where, on the way up, they had made only four miles in a whole day; and they did not cover more than ten miles this afternoon.