Just to get down to the Indian village:  this was her whole problem.  But it was Ben’s plan to land and enter the interior somewhere in the vast wilderness between, from which escape could not be made until the flood waters of fall.  The way would remain open but a few hours more, due to the simple fact that the waters were steadily falling and the river-bottom crags, forming impassable barriers at some points, would be exposed. If she made her escape at all it must be soon.

Yet she could not attempt it at night.  She could not see to guide the canoe while the darkness lay over the river.  Just one further chance remained—­to depart in the first gray of dawn.

She fell into troubled sleep, but true to her resolution, wakened when the first ribbon of light stretched along the eastern horizon.  She sat up, laying the blankets back with infinite care.  This was her chance:  Ben still lay asleep.

Just to steal down to the water’s edge, push off the canoe, and trust her life to the doubtful mercy of the river.  The morning soon would break; if she could avoid the first few crags, she had every chance to guide her craft through to deliverance and safety.  By no conceivable chance could Ben follow her.  He would be left in the shadow of the gorge, a prisoner without hope or prayer of deliverance.  There was no crossing the cliffs that lifted so stern and gray just behind.  Before he could build any kind of a craft with axe and fire, the waters would fall to a death level, beyond any hope of carrying him to safety.  The tables would be turned; he would be left as helpless to follow her as Neilson had been to follow him.

The plan meant deliverance for her; but surely it meant death to him.  Starvation would drive him to the river and destruction, before men could ever come the long way to rescue him.  But this was not her concern.  She was a forest girl and he her enemy:  he must pay the price for his own deeds.

She got to her feet, stalking with absolute silence.  She must not waken him now.  Softly she pressed her unshod foot into the grass.  He stirred in his sleep; and she paused, scarcely breathing.

She looked toward him.  Dimly she could see his face, tranquil in sleep and gray in the soft light; and an instantaneous surge of remorse sped through her.  There was a sweetness, a hint of kindly boyishness in his face now, so changed since she had left him beside the glowing coals.  Yet he was her deadly enemy; and she must not let her woman’s heart cost her her victory in its moment of fulfillment.  She crept on down to the water.

She could discern the black shadow of the canoe.  One swift surge of her shoulders, one leap, the splash of the stern in the water and the swift stroke of the paddle, and she would be safe.  She stepped nearer.

But at that instant a subdued note of warning froze her in her tracks.  It was only a small sound, hushed and hardly sharp enough to arouse Ben from his sleep; but it was deadly, savage, unutterably sinister.  She had forgotten that Ben did not wage war alone.  For the moment she had given no thought to his terrible ally,—­a pack brother faithful to the death.