But already he knew that he was lost.  Before ever he could climb up the hundred yards to the cabin, and back again, the craft would be around the bend in the river.  Heavy brush would hide it from then on.  He hastened frantically up the narrow, winding trail.

XX

Ben was fully aware, as he pushed the canoe from landing, that the success of his scheme was not yet guaranteed.  Long ago, in the hard school of the woods, he had found out life; and one of the things he had learned was that nothing on earth is infallible and no man’s plans are sure.  There are always coincidents of which the scheming brain has not conceived:  the sudden interjection of unexpected circumstances.  The unforeseen appearance of Beatrice’s father on the landing had been a case in point.

Most of all he had been afraid that Beatrice herself would leap from the canoe and attempt to swim to safety.  He had learned in his past conversations with her that she had at least an elementary knowledge of swimming.  Had she not confessed at the same time fear of the water, his plan could have never been adopted.  The northern girls have few opportunities to obtain real proficiency in swimming.  Their rivers are icy cold, their villages do not afford heated natatoriums.  Yet he realized that he must quiet her suspicions as long as possible.

“I’ve got the landing picked out,” he told her as they started off.  “I’ve been all over the river this morning.  It is quite a way down—­around the bend—­but it’s perfectly safe.  So don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid—­with you.  And how fast you paddle!”

It was true:  in all her days by rivers she had never seen such perfect control of a canoe.  He paddled as if without effort, but the streaming shore line showed that the boat moved at an astonishing rate.  He was a master canoeist, and whatever fears she might have had vanished at once.

She talked gayly to him, scarcely aware that they were heading across and down the stream.

When her father had appeared on the bank, calling, she had not been in the least alarmed.  Ben’s gay shouts kept her from understanding exactly what he was saying.  And when the old man had drawn his pistol and fired, and the bullet had splashed in the water some twenty yards toward shore, her mind had refused to accept the evidence of her senses.

The second shot followed the first, and the third the second, resulting in, for her part, only the impotence of bewilderment.  Her first thought was that her father’s fierce temper, long known to her, had engulfed him in murderous rage.  Trusting Ben wholly, the real truth did not occur to her.

She screamed shrilly at the fourth shot; and Ben looked up to find her pale as the foam from his flashing paddle.  “Turn around and go back,” she cried to Ben.  “He’ll kill you if you don’t!  Oh, please—­turn around—­”