“Keep off!  Keep off, for your lives!  It is a renegade who is calling you into an ambush!  Keep off!  Keep off!”

Paul saw a sudden confusion on the boat, a running to and fro of people, and a bucking of the sweeps.  Then he heard a spatter of rifle shots, all this passing in an instant, and the next moment he felt a heavy concussion.  Fire flashed before his eyes, and he sank away into a darkness that quickly engulfed him.

When Paul came back to himself he was lying among the trees where he had fallen, and his head ached violently.  He started to put up his hand to soothe it, but the hand would not move, and then he realized that both hands were bound to his side.  His whole memory came back in a flash, and he looked toward the river.  Far down the stream, and near the middle of it, was a black dot that, even as he looked, became smaller, and disappeared.  It was the flatboat with its living freight, and Paul’s heart, despite his own desperate position, leaped up with joy.

From the river he glanced back at the Indian faces near him, and so far as he could tell they bore no signs of triumph.  Nor could he see any of those hideous trophies they would have been sure to carry in case the ambush had been a success.  No! the triumph had been his, not theirs.  He rolled into an easier position, shut his eyes again to relieve his head, and when he opened them once more, Braxton Wyatt stood beside him.  At the sight, all the wrath and indignation in Paul’s indomitable nature flared up.

“You scoundrel! you awful scoundrel!  You renegade!” he cried.  “Don’t you ever speak to me again!  Don’t you come near me!”

Braxton Wyatt did not turn back when those words, surcharged with passion, met him full in the face, but wore a sad and downcast look.

“I don’t blame you, Paul,” he said gently, “for speaking that way when you don’t understand.  I’m not a renegade, Paul.  I did what I did to save our lives—­yours as well as mine, Paul.  The chief, Red Eagle, threatened to put us both to the most awful tortures at once if I didn’t do it.”

“Liar, as well as scoundrel and renegade!” exclaimed Paul fiercely.

But Braxton Wyatt went on in his gentle, persuading, unabashed manner: 

“It is as true as I stand here.  I could not take you, too, Paul, to torture and death, and all the while I was hoping that the people on the boat would see, or suspect, and that they would turn back in time.  If you had not cried out—­and it was a wonderfully brave thing to do!—­I think that at the last moment I myself should have done so.”

“Liar!” said Paul again, and he turned his back to Braxton Wyatt.

Wyatt looked fixedly at the bound boy, shrugged his shoulders a little, and said: 

“I never took you for a fool before, Paul.”

But Paul was silent, and Braxton Wyatt went away.  An hour or two later Red Eagle came to Paul, unbound his arms, and gave him something to eat.  As Paul ate the venison, Braxton Wyatt returned to him and said: