“Are these the only canoes at the station?” I asked.
Being answered in the affirmative, I directed Luten to hold fast to the empty one, and then pushed off from the shore. My intention was to cut off pursuit by carrying the empty canoe some distance into the stream and then setting her adrift. The river was then about at its present height, and dashed over these rapids with the same violence as now. It was certain that no boat could drift through them without being swamped or broken to pieces.
Accordingly, when we had attained what I thought a sufficient distance from the shore, I directed Luten to let go his hold. Scarcely had he done so when a shriek from Mary, whose face was turned toward the shore, was immediately followed by a plunge, and then another, into the water.
“It is Tamaque and another Indian,” she exclaimed, “and they are swimming for the empty canoe.” I cast a hasty glance behind me, and saw all the peril of our position; but I had no time for making observations. My business was to ply the paddle.
“Now,” continued Mary, “they have almost reached it; and now they have caught—but see! they have upset it in trying to climb in. No! it has come right again; and now Tamaque has got in safely, and is dragging his companion after him. But it is too late; they are almost at the falls, and they cannot stem the current. Look! Merciful Heaven, they will go over, and be drowned!”
Obeying the gentler impulses of her nature, she thought only of their danger, forgetting that that was our only chance of escape.
“Oh! how they do struggle for their lives,” she continued; “and now they are standing still—no, they are moving—they are coming—faster and faster—they are coming toward us!”
I again looked back for a moment, and, truly, they were coming, and evidently gaining on us. Luten meanwhile sat in the bottom of the canoe in a fit of total abstraction.
“I will not leave them, nor return from following after them,” he muttered; “they have gone astray, but I will bring them back, and they shall yet be the instruments, under God, of regenerating the whole Indian race.”
But the state of things was now becoming critical, and Mary cried out in terror: