The canoe swerved, swung out from the slack, and plunged into the foam.  She lifted her bows high out of the water while a white ridge rolled up astern, and for the next minute or two Agatha saw nothing clearly.  Spray beat upon her, whipping her face; she had a confused sense of furious speed, but felt that the canoe was controlled.  Water splashed on board; the Metis bent forward and his shoulders moved in savage jerks.  Behind them, the other canoe plunged down the rapid, rather bounding than sliding from wave to wave.  In front, the black shape of the overturned craft washed to and fro like a drifting log.  Thirlwell shouted as they sped past a rock, the canoe was swung violently sideways, and they were out of the main rush.  There was an eddy behind the rock and the water ran round in white-lined rings.  The moonlight fell across the center and Agatha saw a man’s dark head.

Thirlwell backed his paddle and as they swept round in a semi-circle the Metis stretched out his arm.  They were very near the man in the water and when he spun round like a cork in the revolving backwash the moonlight touched his wet face.  Agatha, leaning over the side, saw that he was the man who had broken into Farnam’s house.  The half-breed missed him and he looked up at her as the canoe shot past.  He was so close that she could almost touch him, and she saw a look of fear in his staring eyes.  Then, without making an effort to reach the canoe, he slipped under Thirlwell’s hand and sank.

The canoe turned and an indistinct object broke the surface.  It vanished, the canoe was swept back to the edge of the main rush, and for a minute or two Thirlwell and the half-breed struggled desperately.  When they reached the slack again, there was nothing but angry water and racing foam.  The man had gone and Agatha shivered and felt faint.

After that she had a hazy impression of streaming woods and flying belts of gloom as they swept down through the slack, until they drove out upon the tail-pool.  For some minutes Thirlwell and the half-breeds battled with the eddies, and then they floated on smoothly and a light began to twinkle among the pines.

Thirlwell steered for the bank and Scott and some of the miners met them at the landing.  Agatha was glad to leave the canoe, for her nerves were badly jarred.

Thirlwell presented Scott, who took them to the shack, which looked as if it had been recently cleaned.  He said Agatha must make use of it for a day or two, and he and Thirlwell would find a berth in the store-shed.  Then they began to talk about the accident and Scott said, “Driscoll came back from the bush, looking ill, a week since and shut himself up in his shack.  One of the boys told Father Lucien, who went along to look after him and found him very sick.  That’s all I know.”

Agatha asked a few questions and then told them about the burglary.

“I am sure he was the man who opened my trunk,” she said.