Round another bend shot the birch canoe, with the Peterboro three hundred yards behind, and now the broken water came in sight. It was a long, rock-staked chute, and the boys thought it would be suicidal to try to run it. But the half-breed kept straight on in mid-channel.
"He's going to try to run through!" Horace cried. "He'll drown himself and the foxes!"
The boys yelled at him; but the next instant the man's canoe had shot into the broken water. For a moment they lost sight of him in a cloud of spray; then they saw him half-way down the rapids, going like a bullet. With incredible skill, he was keeping his craft upright.
The boys drove their canoe toward the landing, and still watched the man. When he was almost through the rapids, they saw his canoe shoot bow upward into the air, hang a moment, and then go over.
Shouting with excitement, they dragged the canoe ashore, picked it up, and went over the portage at a run. Far down the stream they saw the birch canoe floating on its side, near the fox cage. They had just launched the Peterboro at the tail of the rapids, when they saw something black bobbing in the swirling water.
It was the head of the half-breed. He was swimming feebly, and when they hauled him into the canoe, was almost unconscious. He had a great bleeding gash just above his ear, where he had struck a rock; but he was not seriously injured. The boys paid little attention to him, but hastened to rescue their treasure. When they came up with the birch canoe, they found that the fox cage had been lashed to it with a strip of deerskin, and, to their great relief, that the foxes were there, all four of them, alive and afloat.
They got the cage ashore as quickly as possible. The foxes were dripping with water, but looked as lively as ever. To all appearances, the ducking had not hurt them.
The canoe itself had not come off so well. It had a great rent in the bottom, and Horace stamped another hole through the bow. Then the boys examined their new outfit. From their own former store they had a kettle, a frying-pan, a box of rifle-cartridges, and a sack of tea. They had taken from the trappers' supplies half a sack of flour, a lump of salt pork, two blankets, and two rifles.
The half-breed had recovered his wits by this time; sitting on the bank, he glared savagely at them.
"You'll find your partners waiting for you up the river," Horace said to him. "We've got what we need, and you'll find the rest of your kit on the shore where you unpacked it. As for your rifles—"