“It is the yell of Cat-sha the Tiger, chief of the Seminoles!” cried Has-se.  “For the Snake, with the Tiger to aid him, we are no match.  If those white arms of thine have strength in them, now is the time to prove it, Ta-lah-lo-ko.”

With this the two boys bent over their paddles, and plied them with such energy that their light craft fairly hissed through the water, and flew past the gray, motionless columns of the cypresses.  Not far behind came their pursuers, also straining every muscle, and already exulting over the prize that was so nearly within their grasp.

Cat-sha and Chitta had become impatient of waiting in their ambush for those who failed to come, but who they knew had been following them, and they finally decided to cautiously retrace their course in order to learn, what had become of them.  At the mouth of the lagoon in which Rene had awaited Has-se’s return they paused, undecided, for a moment.  From the very trail taken by Has-se there branched another, which led to the distant Seminole fastness in the heart of the great swamp.  Cat-sha at first thought they would do well to examine this trail; for if it should prove to be some of his own band of whose canoe he had caught a glimpse, he would surely discover traces of them here.  Chitta, however, said that those who had followed them might chance to pass on unnoticed while they were in the lagoon.  It would be time enough to examine the trail after they had been back as far as the bayou, and made certain that nobody was between them and it.  Happily for Rene de Veaux, this counsel had prevailed, and they had gone on up the stream.

It was while on their return from the bayou that they had caught sight of the two boys just leaving the lagoon, and that Cat-sha had uttered his war-cry with such startling effect.

Even at the distance they were, both he and Chitta had seen the Flamingo Feather braided in Has-se’s hair, and had also recognized the peculiar costume worn by him whom they knew as the son of the great white chief.

Faster and faster flew the two canoes in their race of life or death down the narrow stream.  That of the two boys was the lighter, but the other, impelled by the powerful strokes of the gigantic Cat-sha, kept pace with it from the outset, and at length began slowly to gain upon it.  Foot by foot, closer and closer, it came, and as the labored breath of the panting boys came shorter and quicker, while the perspiration rolled in great beads from their faces, it seemed as though they were moving at a snail’s pace, and they knew that the unequal struggle could not last much longer.

Suddenly Has-se paused from his labor for an instant, and placing a hand to his mouth, uttered a long, tremulous cry, so wild and shrill that it roused the forest echoes for miles around.

He had hardly resumed his paddle, after a quick backward glance that showed the other canoe to be fearfully near them, when his cry was answered by one precisely similar, uttered only a short distance ahead of them.