CHAPTER XI
THE ISLAND
Seeing the dugout, the men raised a shout and bore down upon them across the sand. Bela was not yet in the river. She swiftly brought the dugout around and paddled down the lake shore across the river from the men.
They, suspecting her of a design to land on this side, pulled up their horses, and returning to the ford, plunged across. Whereupon Bela coolly paddled out into the lake. By this manœuvre she was enabled to get out of range of their guns before they got to the water's edge.
Holding her paddle, she turned to watch them. The sounds of their curses came down the wind. They were directed against Sam, not Bela.
Sam smiled bitterly. "I catch it both ways," he muttered.
"You want them catch you?" asked Bela, with an odd look.
Sam scowled at her helplessly.
She rested on her paddle, looking up and down the shore and out on the lake, manifestly debating with herself what to do. To Sam their situation seemed hopeless. Finally Bela took up the paddle with an air of resolution.