“Neither do I,” Dick heartily agreed.
Toma was of the same mind, and they all set off at a fast pace when once more they took to the trail. They felt confident they could lengthen the lead on their pursuers, but two hours after noon, when they paused to rest on a high ridge, they looked back and were astounded to see the three men not more than a mile behind them.
“Them best trail men Govereau got,” Toma protected his own prowess on finding that he had been outpaced.
They started on again, doubling their former speed. A half hour more brought them to the banks of a river.
“Him Saskatoon River,” Toma told them. “Him full slush ice. We make um raft in hurry; get over, then we safe from Govereau.”
Dick and Sandy looked off across the sullen expanse of the Saskatoon. As Toma had said, it was filled with a slow-moving mass of slush, formed by night freezes and day thaws.
They fell to work like Trojans on a raft, lashing dead logs together with tiny saplings and tough vines. It was a cumbersome raft that they at last shoved out into the icy stream. With poles to propel the unwieldy craft, they began the perilous trip across the river. The delay caused by the building of the raft had given their pursuers time to overtake them, and at any moment they expected to hear a shout or rifle shots from the shore they were slowly leaving behind.
One side of the raft was heavier than the other, and out in the current they came near being spilled off, before they followed Toma’s example and balanced the logs by shifting their weight from side to side.
Pushing on desperately, they reached midstream, when their pursuers reached the river. But the few shots that were fired fell short. The boys had poled the raft out of range. Waving their hands to the chagrined men they reached the other shore and, abandoning their raft, hastened on.
Once more snow was spitting out of the gray heavens, and it was growing steadily colder. They hiked for three miles, then Toma advised a halt The guide began immediately throwing up a shelter of boughs. Dick and Sandy helped with a will, and they finished none too soon. With the fall of night the blizzard Toma had prophesied swept down upon them like a thousand, shrieking demons.