It couldn’t have been over five minutes after the report of a rifle had sounded, before a boat swept suddenly around the bend above the rock and shot like an arrow through the haze toward the trapper.  Herbert was at the oars and the two hounds were sitting on their haunches at the stern.  The stroke the oarsman was pulling was such as a man pulls when, in answer to some emergency, he is putting forth his whole strength.  But though the stroke was an earnest one, there was no apparent hurry in it; for it was long and evenly pulled, from dip to finish, and the recovery seemed a trifle leisurely done.  The face of the trapper fairly shone with delight as he saw the boat and the occupants.  Indeed, his happiness was too great to be enjoyed silently, and, in accordance with his habit when greatly interested, he broke into speech.

“Look at that now!” he exclaimed, as if speaking to some one at his side; “look at that now!  There’s a stroke that’s worth notin’, and is a kind of edication in itself.  Ye might almost think that there wasn’t quite enough snap in it; but the boy knows that he’s pullin’ for his life and the life of another man somewhere below him—­not to speak of the pups—­and he knows it’s good seven miles to the rapids, and he’s pullin’ every ounce that’s in him to pull, and keep his stroke.  Now, he’s come five miles, ef he’s come a rod, and I warrant he hasn’t missed a stroke, save when in shootin’ the rift he let off his piece.  And he knows he’s got seven miles more to pull and he’s set himself a twelve-mile stroke; and there aint many men that could do it, with the roar of the fire a leetle way behind him.  Yis, the boy has acted with jedgment and is sartinly comin’ along like a buck in full jump.  I guess I’d better let him know where I be.”

“Hillow there, boy!  Hi, hi, pups!  Here I be on the p’int of the rock, as fresh as a buck arter a mornin’ drink.  Ease away a leetle, Herbert, in yer stroke and move the pups forad a leetle and make room for a man and a paddle, for the fire is arter ye and the time has come to jine works.”

The young man did as the trapper requested.  He intermitted a stroke and the hounds, at a word, moved into the middle of the boat and crouched obediently in the bottom, but whimpering in their gladness at hearing their master’s voice again.  The boat was under good headway when it passed the point of the ledge on which the trapper was standing, but as it glanced by, the old man leaped with practised agility to his place in the stern and had given a full and strong stroke to his paddle before he had fairly settled to his seat.

“Now, Herbert,” he began, “ease yerself a bit, for ye have had a tough pull and it’s good seven miles to the rapids.  The fire is sartinly comin’ in arnest, but the river runs nigh onto straight till ye git within sight of ’em, and I think we will beat it.  I didn’t feel sartin that ye had got the pups, Herbert, for I could see by the signs that ye wouldn’t have any time to spare.  Was it a tech and a go, boy?”