craft was piled high with baskets which they had been trying to sell among the islands.
The boys knew at once that the red men came from a reservation down the river and belonged to the St. Regis tribe.
“They’re coming right down on us!” cried Ralph.
“What’s the matter with them?” cried Harry. “I see,” he added immediately, “they’ve broken their paddle. See, they are waving the stump of it in the air! Steer out, Ralph! Steer out, or you’ll run them down!”
“I – I can’t,” exclaimed Ralph in an agitated voice.
“Can’t! Why not?”
“Don’t you see where we are? There are rocks on each side. If I turn out we’ll be ripped like an egg shell on them.”
“Gracious, that’s so!” And then Hardware noticed for the first time that they were running through a narrow channel between two islands.
CHAPTER VII
RUN DOWN
Something must be done. In another moment the frail boat would be drawn by the current right down on the bow of the River Swallow and cut in two. But there was no room to turn out or avoid them!
Ralph was the first to gain possession of his senses. He sounded the gong impatiently for Persimmons. Then in the same breath he ordered Hardware to hand him one of the life belts.
“Now then, you take a rope and when we strike them, for it can’t be helped,” he breathed, “lower it over and try to catch one of the men. I’ll get the other.”
Young Ware with compressed lips nodded. At the same moment Persimmons came on deck.
“Take the wheel, Perce,” exclaimed Ralph in a low tense voice, “and keep going upstream whatever happens.”
“What’s going to happen?” asked the alarmed boy.
“In another second we are going to hit an Indian canoe. If we can we are going to save their lives. Hold fast!”
There was a grating bump and a jar, and a cry of alarm came out of the night. Hardware cast his rope, while Persimmons, with a white face and strained muscles, kept the River Swallow on her course. Ralph had taken off his boots; now he ran to the other side of the bridge.
For a flash he saw below him an upturned face, borne past with the rapidity of lightning on the swift current. He cast the life preserver, which had a rope attached to it. To his joy he felt the life-saving device caught and the rope grow taut. But the next moment, under the sudden strain of his weight, a line, stretched across an opening in the bridge against which he had been leaning, parted.
While the other lads set up a yell of alarm, they saw Ralph jerked from the bridge into the tempestuous current. Ralph struck the water and went under.
When he came to the surface, he felt as if a hundred hands had hold of him drawing him under again. Weighted by his clothes, he was sadly handicapped. But he made a valiant fight for it. He still held the rope, but he was unable to reach the life preserver, because it was borne down stream with the Indian clinging to it, as fast as he was.
For what appeared an eternity the battle kept up, and then Ralph felt himself suddenly hurled upon some rocks. Gripping them with the grasp of desperation he hauled himself out of the water and laid hold of the rope with both hands.
It pulled taut. It was plain, then, that the Indian still clung to the life preserver. Conserving his strength for a few minutes, Ralph began to draw steadily in on the line. To aid him he took a turn of it around a small tree. The slender trunk bent like a whip under the strain, but it held without snapping.
Inch by inch Ralph hauled in, and after what seemed an interminable struggle, he pulled up on the bank a dripping, half-dead figure. It was that of the Indian who had grasped the life preserver. The man cast himself down on the beach for a short time, but soon recovered with the vitality of his race.
He gazed at Ralph as if the boy had been a being from another world. Then he appeared to realize what had occurred and broke out angrily into a tirade. Ralph held up a roll of dripping bills to appease his wrath.
“All right. No could help. Me pay,” he said, trying to placate the angry Indian.
The man nodded, but still sullenly.
“Where my friend? You drown him, you pay lot more!” he said.
“So that’s the way they rate friendship, is it?” reflected Ralph. “I guess ‘Lo, the poor Indian,’ has been a lot overestimated, or else this is an exceptional specimen.”
“I hope your friend is all right,” he said aloud, “but anyhow, we’ll soon see. Look!”
From up the river came a sudden glare of blue light. It was a Coston signal from the River Swallow.
“There they are now,” cried Ralph. “They are lying to for us. Lucky thing I have along my water-proof box of matches.”
He fumbled for the metal cylinder which had been of so much use to him in many tight places. Then, followed by the Indian, he set off across the little island to the side on which, judging by the light, the River Swallow was lying to. It did not take long to collect dry sticks and leaves and make a bright glare.
Through the night came a hail from the River Swallow’s megaphone.
“Are you all right, Ralph?”
Ralph cupped his hands. “Fine; but mighty wet! You’d better send ashore. I’ve got the Indian.”
“Good! We got the other,” came back another hail.
“Your friend all right,” said Ralph turning to the Indian. “Pretty soon they send small boat ashore for us.”
“Huh,” muttered the Indian, leaving a doubt to be inferred as to whether he would not just as soon have had the extra money as learn that his friend was safe. Not long afterward the small boat carried by the River Swallow came ashore, and they were rowed off by Hardware.
Full speed was made to the island, where the Indians were accommodated for the night. The next day they were sent on their way rejoicing with a skiff which had been lying idle in the boat house and a substantial recompense for their misfortune.
It was two nights later, after the boys had made a flying trip to the Thousand Islands with some guests of Ralph’s father, leaving them there, that, on the return voyage, they once more encountered “the mystery of the river,” as they had come to call it.
Malvin and Hansen were both on board, but neither was on deck, when suddenly out of the darkness the form of the gray, ghost-like motor craft emerged once more, like a figure in a fog, lightless and suddenly vanishing, as if swept from sight by an invisible hand.
Ralph had the wheel. He gave a sudden gasp as the apparition appeared before his eyes, then faded, vapor-like.
“The search-light, quick!” he ordered Hardware in low breathless tones. A bright spear of light cut the night. Here and there it swung, like a radiant, pointing finger. But it settled on no gray, swiftly sneaking craft.
The momentary reverie into which Ralph had been plunged by the
