"We shall have to make a quick run for it!" Pitamakan called back to me.
The horses slipped and frantically pawed upward in a strenuous effort to avoid plunging down into the river. We made it and, gasping for breath, found ourselves upon the gently sloping ground of the next bottom.
"Almost we went into the river!" Pitamakan exclaimed.
"Don't talk about it!" I replied.
"The Under-Water People almost got us!"
"Oh, do be quiet! Mount and lead on, or let me lead!" I cried.
We went on up through that bottom, across a point, through another bottom and over a very rough point seamed with coulees. In the next bottom I called a halt. "The boat must be somewhere close ahead. We can no longer travel outside the timber; from here on we have to see both shores of the river—"
"It will be impossible for us to see the far shore," Pitamakan broke in.
"Of course. But the boat has lights burning all night long. We shall see them," I explained.
We mounted, and I took the lead into the timber close ahead. I let my horse pick his way, reining him only sufficiently to keep him close to the river and guiding myself by its sullen murmur. We groped our way through the timber of that bottom and of another; then from the next bare point we saw the lights of the boat some little distance up the river against the blackness of the north shore.