“Yes, and the Klamaths are with him—curse their meddlesome hearts. If it hadn’t been for an arrow in the side, two hours ago, I would have defeated one red embassy. My revolver covered the head of one Klamath, and before he could have touched the ground, his comrade would have tumbled against him. But, Artena, we waste time here. I know where I am now. I was lost—utterly lost—when I heard the slight noise you made; but all is right now, I say. I’ve slept in this very cave more than once. We chased four horse-stealing Shoshones hither long ago, and caught them as they were launching a boat on that black river.”
“Ha! if we but possessed a canoe now,” ejaculated Artena. “This water runs past the Bloody Cave.”
“I know it,” said McKay. “Let me look a moment. I hid the boat after we had killed the red thieves.”
The Indian spy watched the half-breed with bated breath while he searched for the boat, and when she saw him emerge from the gloom with a long canoe in his arms, she uttered an exclamation of joy.
“It’s hardly seaworthy, as the sailors would say,” said the chief, bearing the boat into the fire-light. “Time has warped the back and frame, but as we’re going down-stream, and that terribly fast, it may do.”
“It will do,” cried Artena, and then they fell to mending the large rents in the canoe.
Half an hour was spent in this labor, and amid expressions of satisfaction, the barque was borne to the stream.
The situation of the Bloody Cave was well known to the chief of the intrepid rangers. It was near three miles below the spot they now occupied, and the hidden river’s bed was devoid of dangerous rocks. But sharp crags projected from the banks, and it would take an experienced navigator of dark rivers to keep a canoe clear of them.
But Donald McKay knew the dangers, and wisely kept in the middle of the stream. He clutched the paddle firmly, and kept it in the water, but made no noise.
Artena sat silent in the bow of the boat, a revolver in her right hand, and with ears on the alert.