“Oars ain’t no good here,” the scout said.  “You will have to learn to paddle; but, first of all, you have got to learn to sit still.  These here canoes are awkward things for a beginner.  Now you hand in your traps, and I will stow them away, then you take your place in the middle of the boat.  Here’s a paddle for you, and when you begin to feel yourself comfortable, you can start to try with it, easy and gentle to begin with; but you must lay it in when we get near where we may expect that redskins may be in the woods, for the splash of a paddle might cost us all our scalps.”

James took his seat in the middle of the boat.  Jonathan was behind him.  Nat handled the paddle in the bow.  There was but a brief delay in starting, and the ten boats darted noiselessly out on to the lake.  For a time, James did not attempt to use his paddle.  The canoe was of birch bark, so thin that it seemed to him that an incautious movement would instantly knock a hole through her.

Once under weigh, she was steadier than he had expected, and James could feel her bound forward with each stroke of the paddles.  When he became accustomed to the motion of the boat, he raised himself from a sitting position in the bottom, and, kneeling as the others were doing, he began to dip his paddle quietly in the water in time with their stroke.  His familiarity with rowing rendered it easy for him to keep time and swing, and, ere long, he found himself putting a considerable amount of force into each stroke.  Nat looked back over his shoulder.

“Well done, young ’un.  That’s first rate for a beginner, and it makes a deal of difference on our arms.  The others are all paddling three, and, though Jonathan and I have beaten three before now, when our scalps depended on our doing so, it makes all the difference in the work whether you have a sitter to take along, or an extra paddle going.”

It was falling dusk when the boat started, and was, by this time, quite dark.  Scarce a word was heard in the ten canoes as, keeping near the right-hand shore of the lake, they glided rapidly along in a close body.  So noiselessly were the paddles dipped into the water that the drip from them, as they were lifted, was the only sound heard.

Four hours’ steady paddling took them to the narrows, about five-and-twenty miles from their starting point.  Here, on the whispered order of Nat, James laid in his paddle; for, careful as he was, he occasionally made a slight splash as he put it in the water.  The canoes now kept in single file, almost under the trees on the right bank, for the lake was here scarce a mile across, and watchful eyes might be on the lookout on the shore to the left.  Another ten miles was passed, and then the canoes were steered in to the shore.

The guns, blankets, and bundles were lifted out; the canoes raised on the shoulders of the men, and carried a couple of hundred yards among the trees; then, with scarcely a word spoken, each man rolled himself in his blanket and lay down to sleep, four being sent out as scouts in various directions.  Soon after daybreak, all were on foot again, although it had been arranged that no move should be made till night set in.  No fires were lighted, for they had brought with them a supply of biscuit and dry deers’ flesh sufficient for a week.