“I love to stand up face to face with my enemies like a man, while they set me the example,” returned the Pathfinder proudly.  “I am not a red-skin born, and it is more a white man’s gifts to fight openly than to lie in ambushment.”

“And Mabel?”

“True, boy, true; the Sergeant’s daughter must be saved; and, as you say, foolish risks only become boys.  Think you that you can catch the canoe where you stand?”

“There can be no doubt, if you give a vigorous push.”

Pathfinder made the necessary effort; the light bark shot across the intervening space, and Jasper seized it as it came to land.  To secure the canoe, and to take proper positions in the cover, occupied the friends but a moment, when they shook hands cordially, like those who had met after a long separation.

“Now, Jasper, we shall see if a Mingo of them all dares cross the Oswego in the teeth of Killdeer!  You are handier with the oar and the paddle and the sail than with the rifle, perhaps; but you have a stout heart and a steady hand, and them are things that count in a fight.”

“Mabel will find me between her and her enemies,” said Jasper calmly.

“Yes, yes, the Sergeant’s daughter must be protected.  I like you, boy, on your own account; but I like you all the better that you think of one so feeble at a moment when there is need of all your manhood.  See, Jasper!  Three of the knaves are actually getting into the canoe!  They must believe we have fled, or they would not surely venture so much, directly in the very face of Killdeer.”

Sure enough the Iroquois did appear bent on venturing across the stream; for, as the Pathfinder and his friends now kept their persons strictly concealed, their enemies began to think that the latter had taken to flight.  Such a course was that which most white men would have followed; but Mabel was under the care of those who were much too well skilled in forest warfare to neglect to defend the only pass that, in truth, now offered even a probable chance for protection.

As the Pathfinder had said, three warriors were in the canoe, two holding their rifles at a poise, as they knelt in readiness to aim the deadly weapons, and the other standing erect in the stern to wield the paddle.  In this manner they left the shore, having had the precaution to haul the canoe, previously to entering it, so far up the stream as to have got into the comparatively still water above the rift.  It was apparent at a glance that the savage who guided the boat was skilled in the art; for the long steady sweep of his paddle sent the light bark over the glassy surface of the tranquil river as if it were a feather floating in air.

“Shall I fire?” demanded Jasper in a whisper, trembling with eagerness to engage.

“Not yet, boy, not yet.  There are but three of them, and if Master Cap yonder knows how to use the popguns he carries in his belt, we may even let them land, and then we shall recover the canoe.”