rette, his companion looking on with at little lip-curl which might have been of derision or merely of amusement. "Is it good?" she asked, when he had inhaled the first deep breath.

"It's vile!" he returned. "At the same time, it is so much better than nothing that I could do a Highland fling for pure joy. Take my advice, Miss Millington, and never become a slave to the tobacco habit."

"Miss Millington,"" she repeated, half musingly. "Doesn't that strike you as being a trifle absurd at this distance from a drawing-room?"

"It surely does," he admitted frankly; "and so, for that matter, does 'Mr. Prime.""

She looked up at him with a charming little grimace.

"I'll concede the 'Lucetta' if you will concede the 'Donald.""

"It's a go," he laughed. "It is the last of the conventions, and we'll tell it good-by without a whimper." With the goodly array of foodstuff spread out upon the sand, and with his back carefully turned upon the pool of dread, he felt that he could afford to be light-hearted.

There was only a little more of the rummaging to be done. A canvascovered roll unlashed from its place beneath a canoe-stay proved to be a square of duck large enough to make a small sleeping-tent. Inside of this roll there was an ample stock of cartridges for the two repeating rifles lying cased in their canvas covers in the bottom of the boat, and an Indian-tanned deer-skin used as a wrapping for the ammunition. With the guns there was a serviceable woodsman's axe. In the bow, where Prime had dropped the two savage-looking huntingknives, there were a few utensils: a teapot, a camper's skillet large enough to be worth while, tin cup and plates, an empty whiskey bottle, and a basin-the latter presumably for the dough-mixing.

After they had their findings lying on the sand the tender conscience came in play again, and nothing would do but everything must be put back just as they had found it, Prime drawing the line, however, at a portion of the tobacco and enough of the food to serve for supper and breakfast. During the remainder of

the afternoon they left the canoe-load undisturbed, but when evening came Prime borrowed the basin, the cups, plates, and the larger skillet. Farther along he borrowed the canvas roll and the axe and set up the tiny sleeping-tent, placing it so that Lucetta, if she were so minded, could see the fire.

Just before she retired the young woman made a generous protest.

"You mustn't do all the borrowing for me," she insisted. "Go right down there and get one of those blanket rolls for yourself. I shan't sleep a wink if you don't."

The next morning there were more speculations, on the young woman's part, as to the whereabouts of the canoe-owners, with much wonderment at their protracted absence and the singular abandonment of their entire outfit, even to the weapons. Whereat Prime invented all sorts of theories to account for this curious state of affairs, all of them much more ingenious than plausible.

For himself, the mystery was scarcely less unexplainable. Why two men, evidently outfitted for a long journey, should stop by the way, build five fires that were plainly not camp-fires, and then fall to and fight each other to death over a bag of English sovereigns, were puzzles that he did not attempt to solve in his own behalf. It was enough that the facts had befallen, and that the net result for a pair of helpless castaways was a wellstocked canoe which Lucetta's acid-proof honesty was still preventing them from appropriating.

After a breakfast served with the garnishings afforded by the Heaven-sent supplies, Prime uncased the two rifles and looked them over. They were United States products of an early edition, but were apparently serviceable and in, good order. In the canvas case of one of the guns there was a packet of fish lines and hooks. At Lucetta's suggestion a few shots were fired as a signal for the lost canoe-owners. Nothing coming of this, they tried a little target practice, selecting the largest tree in sight for a mark, and both missing it with monotonous regularity. Later in the day Prime brought the talk around by degrees to the expediencies.

How much of the present good

weather must they waste in waiting for the hypothetical return of the absentees? Perhaps some accident had happened; perhaps the absentees would never turn up. Who could tell?

Domestic Science, with gymnasiumteaching on the side, fought the suggestion to which all this pointed. They had no manner of right to take the canoe and its belongings without the consent of the owners. What was the hurry? By waiting they would be sure to obtain the help they were needing, and another day or two must certainly end the suspense. Prime went as far as he could without telling the shocking truth. With the dead men's pool so near at hand he was shudderingly anxious to be gone, but the young woman's logic was unanswerable and the delay was extended. A single small advance marked this second day. Along toward evening Prime unloaded the canoe, and together they made a few heroic attempts to acquire the art of paddling. It was apparently a lost art so far as they were concerned. The big birch-bark, lightened of its load, did everything but what it was expected to do, yawing and careening under the unskilful handling in a most disconcerting

manner.

"If I could only rig up some way to row the thing!" Prime exclaimed, when they had contrived to drift and seesaw half a mile or more down the almost currentless first reach of the stream.

"You couldn't," asserted the more practical young woman. "The sides are as thin as paper, and they wouldn't hold rowlocks if you could make them. Besides, who ever heard of rowing a birchbark canoe?"

"Somebody will hear of it, if I ever live to work this vacation trip of ours into a story- No, no; paddle the other way! We want to turn around and go back!"

They got the hang of it a little better after a while, the young woman catching the knack first; and after much labor they won back to their camping-place on the small peninsula. Over the evening fire Prime unwrapped the deerskin they had found in the canvas roll.

"We shall have to have moccasins of some sort," he announced. "That flimsy

boat isn't going to stand for shoes with heels on them. Does domestic science include a semester in shoemaking? I can assure you in advance that literature doesn't."

Lucetta took the leather and sat for a time regarding it thoughtfully. "No needle, no thread, no pattern," she mused. "And if we cut it and spoil it there won't be enough left for two pairs."

"If you have an idea, try it; I'll stand the expense of the leather," chuckled Prime, with large liberality.

But now the young woman was hesitating on another score.

"This leather belongs to the owners of the canoe; I don't know that we have any right to cut it," she objected.

Prime was tempted to say things objurgatory of these phantom owners who would not down, but he didn't. Every fresh reference to the two dead men gave him an impulse to glance over his shoulder at the silent pool in the eddy, and the longer the thing went on the less able he was to control the prompting.

"You forget that we are able to pay for all damages," was what he really did say, and at that the young woman removed a shoe, placed a neatly stockinged foot on the skin and marked around it with a bit of charcoal taken from the fire, leaving a generous margin. Borrowing Prime's pocket-knife she cut to the line, made tiny buttonholes all around the piece, and threaded them with a drawing-string made of the soft leather.

"You've got it!" exclaimed the unskilled one in open-eyed admiration, after the one-piece slipper was fashioned and tried on. "You are a wonder! I shouldn't have thought of that in a month of Sundays. It's capital!"

There was enough material in the single skin to make the two pairs, with something left over, and Prime put his on at once with a sigh of relief born of the grateful chance to get rid of the civilized shoes. Past that there was more talk about the ever-thickening mysteries, and again Lucetta refused to accept the Grider explanation, while Prime clung to it simply because he could not invent any other. Yet it was borne in upon him that the mystery was edging away from the Grider hypothesis in spite of all he could do.

There was nothing to connect the two canoe men, fighting over the purse of gold, with Grider, or with the abduction of a school-teacher and a writer of stories; yet there were pointings here, too, if one might read them. Why were the five fires lighted in the glade unless it were for a signal of some sort? Prime wished from the bottom of his heart that he could set the keen mentality of his companion at work on this latest phase of the mystery, but with the dead men lying stiff and still at the bottom of their pool less than a stone's throw away his courage failed him and his lips were sealed.

VI

CANOEDLINGS

ON the fifth morning-their third at the peninsula camp-Prime registered a solemn vow to make this the last day of the entirely unnecessary delay. More and more he was tormented by the fear that the dead men might escape from their weightings and rise to become a menace to Lucetta's sanity or his own; and, though he had been given the best possible proof that his companion was above reproach in the matter of calm courage and freedom from hysteria, he meant to take no chances-for her or for himself.

At his suggestion they began the day by making another essay at the paddling, embarking in the emptied canoe shortly after breakfast. Gaining a little facility after an hour or so, they headed the birchbark down-stream past the point which they had reached the previous afternoon, and soon found themselves in a quickening current. Prime, kneeling in the bow, gave the word, and Lucetta obeyed it.

"We'll try the quick water," he flung back to her. "We'll have to have the experience, and we had better get it with the empty canoe, rather than with the load."

This seemed logical, but it led to results. In a short time the shores grew rocky and there was no safe place to land. Moreover, the little river was now running so swiftly that they were afraid to try to turn around. Rapid after rapid was passed in vain struggles to stop the tri

umphal progress, and if the canoe's lading had been aboard, Prime would have been entirely happy, since every rapid they shot was taking them farther away from the scene of the tragedy. But the lading was not aboard.

"We've got to do something to head off this runaway!" the bowman shouted back over his shoulder in one of the quieter raceways. "We're leaving our commissary behind."

"Anything you say," chimed in the steerswoman from the stern of the dancing runaway. "My knees are getting awfully tired, but I can stand it as long as you can."

"That is the trouble," Prime called back. "We're staying with it too long. The next pool we come to, you paddle like mad, all on one side, and I'll do the same. We've simply got to turn around!"

The manoeuvre worked like a charm. A succession of the eddy-pools came rushing up from down-stream, and in the third of them they contrived to get the birch-bark reversed and pointed upstream. Then it suddenly occurred to the young woman that they had had their trouble for nothing; that the same end might have been gained if they had merely turned themselves around and faced the other way. Her shriek of laughter made Prime stop paddling for the

moment.

"I need a guardian-we both need guardians!" he snorted, when she told him what she was laughing at, and then they dug their paddles in a frantic effort to stem the swift current.

It was no go-less than no go. In spite of all they could do the birch-bark refused to be driven up-stream. What was worse, it began to drift backward, slowly at first, but presently at a pace which made them quickly turn to face the other way lest they be smashed in a rapid. A mile or more fled to the rear before they could take breath, and two more rapids were passed, up which Prime knew they could never force the canoe with any skill they possessed or were likely to acquire.

Taking advantage of the next lull in the unmanageable flight, he shouted again.

"We'll have to go ashore! We are getting so far away now that we shall

never get back. You're steering: try it in the next quiet place we come to, and I'll do all I can to help."

The "next quiet place" proved to be a full half-mile farther along, and they had a dozen hair-breadth escapes in more of the quick stretches before they reached it. Prime lived years in moments in the swifter rushes. Knowing his own help lessness in the water, he was in deadly fear of a capsize, not from any unmanly dread of death but because he had a vivid and unnerving picture of Lucetta's predicament if she should escape and be left alone and helpless in the heart of the forest wilderness. He drew his first good breath after the runaway canoe had been safely beached on the shore of an eddy and they had tottered carefully out of it to drag it still higher upon the shelving

bank.

"My heavens!" he panted, throwing himself down to gasp at leisure. “I wouldn't go through that again for a farm in Paradise! Weren't you scared stiff?" "I certainly was,' was the frank admission. The young woman had taken her characteristic attitude, sitting down with her chin propped in her hands.

"But, just the same, you didn't forget to paddle!" Prime exulted. "You are a comrade, right, Lucetta! It's a thousand pities you aren't a man!"

"Isn't it?" she murmured, without turning her head.

"Do you know-I was simply paralyzed at the thought of what would happen if we should upset-not so much at the thought of what would be certain to happen to me, but on your account."

"The protective instinct," she remarked; "it is like a good many other things which we have outgrown or are outgrowing quite useless, but stubbornly persistent."

"You mean that you don't need it?" "I haven't needed it yet, have I?" "No," he admitted soberly. "So far, have had the nerve, and more than your share of the physique."

you

"I have had better training, perhaps," she offered, as if willing to make it easier for him. "A little farther along you will begin to develop, while I shall stand still." But Prime would not let it rest at that. "I have always maintained that most

women have a finer nerve, and finer courage, than most men; I am speaking now of the civilized average. You are proving my theory, and I owe you something. But to get back to things present; doesn't it occur to you that we have gotten ourselves into a rather awkward mess?"

"It does, indeed. We must be miles from anything to eat, and if you know of any way to take this canoe up-stream I wish you would tell me; I don't."

"It will be by main strength and awkwardness, as the Irishman played the cornet, if we do it at all," Prime decided. "And if, in the meantime, the owners come back and find it gone

Prime got up stiffly. "I have a feeling that they haven't come back yet, and it is growing fast into a feeling that they are not going to come back at all. Shall we try a towing stunt?"

They tried it, though they had no towline and were reduced to the necessity of dragging the canoe along in the shallows, each with a hand on the gunwale. This did not answer very well, and after fighting for a half-hour in the first of the rapids and getting thoroughly wet and bedraggled they had to give it up and reverse the process, letting the birch-bark drift down to the safe dockage again.

While they were resting from their labors, and the hampered half of the towing squad was wringing the water from her skirts, Prime looked at his watch.

"Heavens and earth!" he exclaimed. "It is noon already! I thought I was beginning to feel that way inside. Why didn't we have sense enough to take a bite along with us when we left camp this morning?"

"Oh, if you are going into the whys, why didn't we have sense enough to know that we couldn't handle the canoe? How far have we come?"

Prime shook his head. "You couldn't prove it by me. A part of the time it seemed to me that we were bettering a mile a minute." He got up and hobbled back and forth on the little beach to work the canoe-cramp out of his knees. "It looks to me as if we are up against it good and hard; the canoe is here, and the dunnage is up yonder. Which do we do: carry the canoe to the dunnage, or the dunnage to the canoe? It's a heav

enly choice either way around. What do you say?"

Lucetta voted at once for the canoecarrying, if it were at all possible. So much, she said, they owed to the owners, who had every right to expect to find their property where they had left it. Again Prime was tempted to say hard things about the ghosts which so stubbornly refused to be laid, and again he denied himself.

"The canoe it is," he responded grimly, but by the time they had dragged the light but unwieldy craft out of the water and part way up the bank they were convinced that the other alternative was the only one. A short portage they might have made, or possibly a long one, if they had known enough to turn the birchbark bottom-side up and carry it on their heads voyageur-fashion. But they still had this to learn.

"It's a frost," was Prime's decision after they had tugged and stumbled a little way with the clumsy burden knocking at their legs. "The mountain won't go to Mohammed-that much is perfectly plain. Are you game for a long portage with the camp outfit? It seems to be the only thing there is left for us to do." The young woman was game, and since they were on the wrong side of the river they put the canoe into the water again and paddled to the other side, leaving the birch-bark drawn out upon the bank of the eddy-pool. From that they went on, hunger urging them and the watersoftened moccasins holding them back and making them pick their way like children in the first few days of the barefoot season. The distance proved to be about three miles and they made it in something over an hour. The embers of their morning fire were still alive, and the belated midday meal was quickly cooked and despatched.

"Now for the hard part of it," Prime announced, as he began to pack the camp outfit. "You sit right still and rest, and I'll get things ready for the tote."

"Then you have determined to ride rough-shod over the rights of the people who own the things?" the young woman asked.

Prime turned his back deliberately upon the pool of dread.

"Necessity knows no law, and we can't stay here forever waiting for something to turn up. Somebody has given us a strong-hand deal, for what reason God only knows, and we've got to fight out of it the best way we can. We'll take these things, and we are willing to pay for them if anybody should ask us to; but in any event we are going to take them, because it is a matter of life and death to us. I'll shoulder all the responsibility, moral and otherwise."

She laughed a little at this. "More of the protective instinct? I can't allow that my conscience is my own. But I suppose you are right. There doesn't seem to be anything else to do. And you needn't fit all of those packs to your own back; I propose to carry my share.”

He protested at that, and learned one more thing about Lucetta Millington: up to a certain point she was as docile and leadable as the woman of the Stone Age is supposed to have been, and beyond that she was adamant.

"You said a little while ago it was a pity I wasn't a man: it is the woman's part nowadays to ask no odds. Will you try to remember that?"

Here was a hint of a brand-new Lucetta, and Prime wondered how he had contrived to live twenty-eight years in a world of women only to be brought in contact for the first time with the real, simon-pure article in the heart of a Canadian wilderness. Nevertheless he took her at her word and made a small pack for her, with a carrying-strap cut from the remains of the deerskin. At the very best the portage promised to demand three trips, which was appalling.

It was well past the middle of the afternoon when they reached the canoe at the end of the first carry. The threemile trudge had been made in silence, neither of the amateur carriers having breath to spare for talk. Since they had the tent and one of the blanket-rolls and sufficient food, Prime was for putting off the remaining double carry to another day, but again Lucetta was adamant.

"If we do that we shall lose all day to-morrow," was the form her protest took; "and now that we have started we had better keep on going."

"Oh, what is the frantic hurry?"