The steersman was Joe. "Don't stop," he yelled to the heaving oarsmen, "or she'll give us the slip yet! Get ahead and cut her off! You damned dish-washer, we've got you now!" he added for Sam's benefit.
With a sharp crack, Big Jack's oar broke off short. He capsized backward into Shand, knocking him off his seat as well. At the same instant the whispering breeze came up and the blanket bellied out.
Shand and Jack were for the moment inextricably entangled in the bottom of the boat. Emotional Joe cursed and stamped and tore at his hair like a lunatic. Loud laughter broke from Sam and Bela as they sailed away.
Joe beside himself, snatched up his gun and opened fire. A bullet went through the blanket. Bela and Sam instinctively ducked. Perhaps they prayed; more likely they did not realize their danger until it was over. Other shots followed, but Joe was shooting wild. He could not aim directly at Sam, because Bela was between. He emptied his magazine without doing any damage.
In the reaction that followed Bela and Sam laughed. In that moment they were one.
"Feels funny to have a fellow slinging lead at you, eh?" said Sam.
"Musq'oosis say after a man hear bullet whistle he is grown," answered Bela.
A few minutes later the river received them. There was a straight reach of a third of a mile, followed by innumerable, bewildering corkscrew bends all the way to the head of the rapids, thirty miles or more. Out in the lake behind them their pursuers were struggling forward, sculling with the remaining oar.
Bela watched anxiously to see what they would do when they got in the river. If they knew enough to go ashore and take to the land trail, it was possible that even on foot they might cut her off at a point below where the trail touched the river.
Apparently, however, they meant to follow by water. At the last sight she had of them before rounding the first bend they were still sculling.