Indian stooped, and after two or three attempts fished something from the water. He looked at it keenly for a moment, then he gave a shout, and began to walk along the bar towards the canoe.

As he came nearer, the white man saw that the object he carried was the spoon end of a paddle. When close at hand the Indian held it out for his inspection.

"Him broke," he said in English. "And the break quite fresh."

There was no question as to that. Notwithstanding that the paddle had been in the water, the clean wood of the fracture showed quite plainly, and whilst Ainley was looking at it the Indian stretched a finger and pointed to a semi-circular groove which ran across the broken end.

"Him shot!" he announced quite calmly.

"Are you sure?" asked Ainley, betraying no particular surprise.

The Indian nodded his head gravely, and fitted his little finger in the groove.

"Bullet-mark!"

Ainley did not dispute the contention, nor apparently was he greatly troubled by the Indian's contention. He looked round a little anxiously.

"But where is the canoe?" he asked. "And Miss Yardely?"

The Indian waved a hand down river. "Canoe miss this bar, and go in the current like hell to the meeting of the waters. Better we keep straight on and watch out."

As they started down river again, Ainley's face took on a settled look of anxiety. It was now close on midnight, but very light, and on either bank everything could be clearly seen. They kept a sharp look out, but found no further trace of the missing canoe, and the early dawn found them in a quickening current, racing for the point where the tributary river joined the main stream.

Presently it came in sight, and between walls of spruce and a foaming crest of water they swept into the broader river, which rolled its turbid way towards its outfall in one of the great Northern lakes. The canoe pranced like a frightened horse at the meeting of the waters, and when they were safely through it, Ainley looked back and questioned his companion.

"Would Miss Yardely's canoe come through that?"

"Like a dry stick," answered the Indian, letting the canoe drift for a moment in order to swing into the main current of the broader stream.

Ainley looked ahead. Downstream the river narrowed and the low broad banks about them gradually rose, until they were like high ramparts on either hand. The Indian pointed towards the tree-crowned cliffs.

"No good there," he said. "We land here, and make grub; walk down and see what water like."

It seemed to Ainley the only sensible thing to do, and he did not demur. Accordingly, the Indian, seeing a favourable beach, turned the canoe inshore, and whilst his companion was preparing breakfast, the white man walked downstream towards the ramparts of rocks through which the river ran. When he reached them he looked down at the water. It ran smooth and glassy and swift, whirling against the rocky sides a good foot higher than between the earthen banks upstream. He followed the gorge, forgetting that he was tired, forgetting the preparing breakfast, a look of extreme anxiety upon his face. Three-quarters of an hour's walking brought him to the end of the gorge, and for a mile or two the country opened out once more, the river running wide between low-lying banks to disappear in the lee of a range of hills above which hung a veil of mist. He stood regarding the scene for a few minutes and then, the anxiety on his face more pronounced than ever, made his way back to the place where the Indian awaited him. The Indian had already eaten, and whilst he himself breakfasted he told him what he had seen. The native listened carefully, and in the end replied in his own language.

"Good! We go through the cliffs, in place of making the portage. It is the swifter way, and if the white Klootchman come this way, she has gone through these gates of the waters. We follow, but not very far, for again we come to the hills, and to a place where the earth is rent, and the waters fall down a wall that is higher than the highest spruce. If the Klootchman's canoe go there—it is the end."

Falls! So that was the meaning of that mist among the hills. There the river plunged into a chasm, and if Helen Yardely's canoe had been swept on in the current it was indeed the end. Ainley's anxiety mounted to positive fear. He pushed from him the fried deer-meat and bacon which the other had prepared for him, and rose suddenly to his feet.

"Let us be going!" he said sharply, and walked restlessly to and fro whilst his companion broke camp. A few minutes later they were afloat again, and after a little time there was no need to paddle. The current caught them and flung them towards the limestone gateway at express speed. In an amazingly short time they had passed through the gorge, and were watching the banks open out on either side of them.

There was no sign of life anywhere, no indication that any one had passed that way since time began. As they sped onward a peculiar throb and rumble began to make itself heard. It increased as they neared the range of hills towards which they were making, and as the banks began to grow rocky, and the water ahead broken by boulders, the Indian looked for a good place to land.

He found it on the lee side of a bluff where an eddy had scooped a little bay in the steep bank, and turning the canoe inside it, they stepped ashore. Making the canoe secure they climbed to the top of the bank and began to push their way down stream. The rapids, as Ainley noted, grew worse. Everywhere the rocks stood up like teeth tearing the water to tatters, and the rumble ahead grew more pronounced. Standing still for a moment, they felt the earth trembling beneath their feet, and the white man's face paled with apprehension. A tangle of spruce hid the view of the river as it skirted a big rock, and as the river evidently made a swerve at this point, they struck a bee-line through the timber. The rumble, of which they had long been conscious, of the suddenest seemed to become a roar, and, as they came to an open place where they could see the water again, they understood the reason.

The river but a few feet below them, bordered by shelving terraces of rock, suddenly disappeared. Rolling glassily for perhaps fifty yards, with scarce a ripple on its surface, the water seemed to gather itself together, and leap into a gorge, the bottom of which was ninety feet below. Ainley stood looking at the long cascade for a full minute, a wild light in his eyes, then he looked long and steadily at the gorge through which the river ran after its great leap. His face was white and grim, and his mouth was quivering painfully.

Then without a word he turned and began to hurry along the line of the gorge. The Indian strode after him.

"Where go to?" he asked.

"The end of the gorge," was the brief reply.

The Indian nodded, and then looked back. "If canoe can go over there it smash to small bits."

"Oh, I know it, don't I?" cried Ainley savagely. "Hold your tongue, can't you?"

An hour's wild walking brought them to the end of the gorge, and looking down the rather steep face of the hill, to the widening river, the white man carefully surveyed the banks. After a time he found what he was looking for—a pile of debris heaped against a bluff, whose hard rock resisted the action of the water. It was about a quarter of a mile away and on the same bank of the river as himself. Still in silence he began to drop down the face of the hill, and sometimes climbing over moss-grown rocks, sometimes wading waist-high in the river itself, he made his way to the heap of debris. It was the drift-pile made by the river, which at this point cast out from its bosom logs and trees and all manner of debris brought over the falls and down the gorge, a great heap piled in inextricable confusion as high as a tall fir tree, and as broad as a church.

Feverishly, Gerald Ainley began to wade round its wide base; and the Indian also joined in the search, poking among