“Hang to the canoe!”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when he stood erect and launched himself like an animal into the black depths toward shore.  With a terrified cry Rod rose to his knees.  In another instant he would have plunged recklessly after Wabi, but Mukoki’s voice sounding behind him, snarling in its fierceness, stopped him.

“Hang to canoe!”

There came a jerk.  The bow of the canoe swung inward and the stern whirled so quickly that Rod, half kneeling, nearly lost his balance.  In that instant he turned his face and saw the old warrior standing, as Wabigoon had done before him, and as Mukoki leaped there came for a third time that warning cry: 

“Hang to canoe!”

And Rod hung.  He knew that for some reason those commands were meant for him, and him alone; he knew that the desperate plunges of his comrades were not inspired by cowardice or fear, but not until the birch bark ground upon the shore and he tumbled out in safety did he fully comprehend what had happened.  Holding the rope with which they tied their canoe, Wabigoon had taken a desperate chance.  His quick mind had leaped like a flash of powder to their last hope, and at the crucial moment, just as the momentum of the birch bark gave way to the whirling forces of the pool, he had jumped a good seven feet toward shore, and had found bottom!  Another twelve inches of water under him and all would have been lost.

Wabigoon stood panting and dripping wet, and in the moonlight his face was as white as the tub-like spot of foam out in the center of the maelstrom.

“That’s what you call going to kingdomcome and getting out again!” he gasped.  “Muky, that was the closest shave we’ve ever had!  It has your avalanche beaten to a frazzle!”

Mukoki was dragging the canoe upon the pebbly shore, and still overcome by the suddenness of all that had happened Rod went to his assistance.

The adventurers now discovered themselves in a most interesting situation.  The night had indeed been one of curious and thrilling happenings for them, and here was a pretty climax to it all!  They had escaped the mad hunter by running into the almost fatal grip of the whirlpool, and now they had escaped the perils of that seething death-trap by plunging into a tiny rock-bound prison which seemed destined to hold them for all time, or at least until the floods of spring subsided.  Straight above them, and shutting them in entirely, rose precipitous rock walls.  On the only open side was the deadly maelstrom.

Even Mukoki as he glanced about him was struck by the humor of their situation, and chuckled softly.

Wabi stood with his hands deep in his soaked pockets, facing the moonlit walls.  Then he turned to Rod, and grinned; then he faced the whirlpool, and after that his eyes swept the space of sky above them.  The situation was funny, at first; but when he looked at the white youth again the smile had died out of his face.