"Perhaps a bear or a deer," said Robert.
"I think not. They are used to wild animals, and would not be startled at their approach. There is only one being that everything in the forest generally fears."
"Man?"
"Even so, Dagaeoga."
"Perhaps we'd better pull in close to the bank and look."
"It would be wise."
Robert saw that the Onondaga, with his acute instincts, was deeply alarmed, and he too felt that the wild fowl had given warning. They sent the canoe with a few silent strokes through the shallow water almost to the edge of the land, and, as it nearly struck bottom, two dusky figures rising among the bushes threw their weight upon them. The light craft sank almost to the edges with the weight, but did not overturn, and both attackers and attacked fell out of it into the lake.
Robert for a moment saw a dusky face above him, and instinctively he clasped the body of a warrior in his arms. Then the two went down together in the water. The Indian was about to strike at him with a knife, but the lake saved him. As the water rushed into eye, mouth and nostril the two fell apart, but Robert was able to keep his presence of mind in that terrible moment, and, as he came up again, he snatched out his own knife and struck almost blindly.
He felt the blade encounter resistance, and then pass through it. He heard a choked cry and he shuddered violently. All his instincts were for civilization and against the taking of human life, and he had struck merely to save his own, but almost articulate words of thankfulness bubbled to his lips as he saw the dark figure that had hovered so mercilessly over him disappear. Then a second figure took the place of the first and he drew back the fatal blade again, but a soft voice said:
"Do not strike, Dagaeoga. I also have accounted for one of the warriors who attacked us, and no more have yet come. We may thank the wild fowl. Had they not warned us we should have perished."