the drift-logs and occasionally tumbling one aside. Then the Indian gave a sharp grunt, and out of the pile dragged a piece of wreckage that was obviously part of the side and bow of a canoe. He shouted to Ainley, who hurried scramblingly over a heap of the obstructing logs, and who, after one look at that which the Indian had retrieved, stood there shaking like wind-stricken corn; his face white and ghastly, his eyes full of agony. The Indian put a brown finger on a symbol painted on the bows, with the letters H. B. C. beneath. Both of them recognized the piece of wreckage as belonging to the canoe in which Helen Yardely had left the camp, and the Indian, with a glance at the gorge which had vomited the wreckage, gave emphatic utterance to his belief.

"All gone."

Gerald Ainley made no reply. He had no doubt that what the Indian said was true, and the truth was terrible enough. Turning away he began anew to search the drift-pile, looking now for the body of a dead girl, though with but little hope of finding it. For an hour he searched in vain, then began to scramble down river, searching the bank. A mile below the first drift-pile he came upon a second, caught by a sand-bar, that, thrusting itself out in the water, snared the smaller debris. This also he searched diligently, with no result; and after wandering a little further down the river without finding anything, returned to where the Indian awaited him.

"We will go back," he said, and these were the only words he spoke until they reached their canoe again.

The Indian cooked a meal, of which Ainley partook with but little care for what he was eating, his eyes fixed on the ochre-coloured water as it swept by, his face the index of unfathomable thoughts. After the meal they began to track their canoe upstream, until they reached water where it would be possible to paddle, one of them towing with a line, and the other working hard with the paddle to keep the canoe's nose from the bank. A little way before they reached the limestone ramparts through which they had swept at such speed a few hours before, the Indian, who was at the towline, stopped and indicated that they must make a portage over the gorge, since the configuration of the cliffs made it impossible to tow the canoe through. In this task, a very hard one, necessitating two journeys, one with the canoe and one with the stores, they were occupied the remainder of the day, and when they pitched camp again and had eaten the evening meal, the Indian promptly fell asleep.

But there was no sleep for Gerald Ainley. He sat there staring at the water rushing by, reflecting the crimson flare of the Northern night. And it was not crimson that he saw it, but ochre-coloured as he had seen it earlier in the day, hurrying towards the rapids below, and to that ninety-foot leap into the gorge. And all the time, in vision, he saw a canoe swept on the brown flood, a canoe in which crouched a chestnut-haired girl, her grey eyes wide with fear; her hands helplessly clasped, as she stared ahead, whilst the canoe danced and leaped in the quickening waters hurrying towards the ramparts below, which for aught she knew might well be the gates of death.

Sometimes the vision changed, and he saw the canoe in the rapids below the ramparts, and waited in agony for it to strike one of the ugly teeth of rock. Again and again it seemed that it must, but always the current swept it clear, and it moved on at an increasing pace, swept in that quick mill-race immediately above the falls. On the very edge he saw it pause for a brief fraction of time and then the water flung it and the white-faced girl into the depths beneath, and he saw them falling, falling through the clouds of spray, the girl's dying cry ringing through the thunder of the waters. He cried out in sudden agony.