“It’s Lewis!” exclaimed Marion. “Throw a line out, Kenton!”
Lewis caught the line without trouble and the men soon had him aboard, dripping and excited.
“Bad stretch of water to bathe in, Lewis,” said the captain, gravely.
“I didn’t mean to fall in,” said Lewis. “A canoe stole past to port of us, and before I could cry out an Indian had slipped up behind me and shoved me into the water, but I took him with me. When we came up to the surface someone in the canoe reached out to us, but instead of pulling us in I saw a knife flash and the Indian who had pulled me overboard went down without a gurgle, cut through the throat. I dived under, for I didn’t want to make any closer acquaintance with the Indian in the canoe. Then I came up, and here I am. Where’s the canoe?”
“It must have put into one of the caves,” said the captain. “What I can’t understand is how it could have happened without Moses hearing.”
“I was looking at the palisades,” said Mose. “It all happened at the bow, ninety feet away. By the time the ark had floated its own length it was all over.”
“Go down and get dry clothes, Lewis,” ordered the captain. “Keep a sharp watch, the rest of you. There is something extraordinary about this—two Indians in a canoe try to murder the watch aboard an ark, and the second Indian, instead of doing his part and killing the steersman as the ark drifts by, knifes the first Indian. I never heard of such a thing. Are you sure you weren’t dreaming when you fell overboard?”
“Dreaming?” chattered Lewis, stopping on his way to the cabin. “Look at that!”
They wheeled and stared behind them. Around a small jutting ledge an empty canoe was drifting towards them, dancing giddily in the ark’s shining wake. Almost as they looked a shot rang out from a cave that they were passing and John Cutler, one of the oldest men of the crew, lurched into Kenton’s arms.
“Veer off shore,” ordered the captain, quietly. “Steady—the sweeps. MacAfee, stand by ready to catch that canoe. Careful with the oar. Don’t upset the canoe with it. Steady—steady with the sweeps—back water all you can. Shad Lincoln, stand by to help MacAfee.”
“Aren’t we going back to kill the Indian that shot Cutler?” indignantly asked Kenton, as he saw the ark swing away from the shore.
