"Not to-night. Now, Pauquet."
"One of us dies, then!" D'Hérouville's sword was out.
"Are you mad?" exclaimed the vicomte, recoiling.
"Perhaps. Quick!" The sword took an ominous angle, and the point touched the vicomte.
"Get in!" said the vicomte, controlling his wild rage. "I will kill you the first opportunity. To-night there is not time." He seized his paddle, which he handled with no small skill considering how recently he had applied himself to this peculiar art of navigation.
Pauquet took his position in the stern, while D'Hérouville crouched amidships, his bare sword across his knees. The vicomte's broad back was toward him, proving his contempt of fear. They were both brave men.
"Follow the ripple, Monsieur," said Pauquet; "that is the way Monsieur le Chevalier has gone."
It was all very foolhardy, this expedition of untried men against Indian cunning; but it was also very gallant: the woman they loved was in peril.
So the two canoes stole away upon the broad bosom of the river and presently disappeared in the pearly moon-mists, the one always hugging the wake of the other. The weird call of the loon sometimes sounded close by. The air was heavy with the smell of water, of earth, and of resin.
Three of these men had taken the way from which no man returns.