So dexterous were the movements of the boy trailer, whose cause Custer had taken up so readily, and might have carried out but for his untimely death, that no sound resulted from his locomotion through the water, beyond that which even the most suspicious of mortals would take to be the swishing of the wind-driven wavelets. When the canoe came even with the spot on which he had stood before entering the water, Mason was directly in front of it. As only his head remained above the water and the giant's direction was directed further on, it was not strange that Red Goliath failed to discover anything suspicious just at the prow of his canoe. The boat glided past, and Mason's hand sought the ring he had hunted up previously. Luckily he found it, and in this way managed to keep alongside of the boat, just behind the giant. Red Goliath stood up like a statue, and for such he might indeed have been taken but for the regular pendulum motion of his arms, as the paddle was shifted from side to side, in order that the momentum caused by the current might be materially aided by long silent sweeps. Adele sat in the bow, motionless. Young Mason's heart gave a great throb of sympathy when he heard what sounded suspiciously like a sob from the girl. His sister had been stolen from her home in New Orleans by Hoskins and this giant, and like a sleuth-hound this boy had followed on the trail, tracking the fugitives from one border town to another on their northward course, and yet always coming too late. He had met Custer years before, and had been a friend of the yellow-haired cavalry leader, so when he found the general in these regions, the latter at once took up his cause, and sent out scouts to discover where Hoskins and his fair girl captive were. These men, experienced as they were, failed to accomplish their end. It was Mason himself, by his indefatigable efforts, who first discovered Sitting Bull's village, and reported the fact to the general, who was already heading in that direction, aiming for the Little Big Horn. The boy also declared that Hoskins was with the Indians, which fact Custer was prone to believe. After this Mason vanished, nor did he make his appearance until the doomed command was riding down the bluffs into the ambuscade. How the latter proved fatal to the gallant troops is already known. The wily Sioux allowed them to come on, pretending to give way, until the men were fairly in the trap, when they closed about them in a solid mass. After this explanation, which I hold as due to the reader, I will resume the thread of my narrative where it was dropped. The canoe passed down the stream for several miles in this way.