"You can take it easier now, Paul. We're out uv range, though not uv sight."
Paul straightened up, laid his paddle in the boat, and gasped for breath.
"Look over thar, Paul, ef you want to see a pleasant scene," said Jim Hart calmly.
Paul's gaze followed the long man's pointing finger, and he saw at least twenty warriors gathered on the bank, and regarding them now in dead silence.
"Mad!" said Jim Hart. "Mad clean through!"
"They've chased us on land, and now they are chasing us on water. I wonder where they will chase us next," said Paul.
"Not through the air, 'cause they can't fly, nor kin we," said Jim Hart sagely.
Paul looked back again at the ferocious band gathered on the shore, and, while he could not see their faces at the distance, he could imagine the evil passions pictured there. As he gazed the band broke up, and many of them came running along the shore. Then Paul noticed that the prow of their canoe was not turned toward the island, but was bearing steadily toward the north end of the lake, leaving the island well to the left. He glanced at Jim Hart, and the long man laughed low, but with deep satisfaction.
"Don't you see, Paul," he said, "that we kain't go to the islan' an' show to them that we've been livin' thar? That might wipe out all the spell uv the place. We got to let 'em think we're 'fraid uv it, too, an' that we dassent land thar. We'll paddle up to the head uv the lake, come down on the other side, an' then, when it's atween us an' them, we'll come across to our islan'."
They were still abreast of the island, and yet midway between it and the mainland. Paul saw the Indians running along the shore, and now and then taking a shot at the canoe. But the bullets always fell short.