"It will be dark by the time he is over this side of the river," said Steve's father, "and by that time we shall be near him. You can find this trail, Silver Fox?" "On the darkest night, Chief." "Then we will go. Pick up your traps, boys." The party filed out of the wigwam, leaving their late home standing, and, with the Indian leading, strode off towards the edge of the cliff. Steve had been decked as a Huron, and he took his place third in the line. They reached the edge, and without the smallest hesitation the Indian chief scrambled over it. "Be careful, brothers," he cautioned them. "The way is steep. A fall would end in death." One by one in quick succession they lowered themselves over the edge, and gripping boulders and grass and the roots of bushes, finally reached the bank below. The canoe was there, and they stepped into it silently. Jim pushed off from the shore, and in a little while they were shooting down the centre of the river, hidden in the darkness, from which they watched a hundred and more twinkling lights which glimmered from the windows of the fairy city of Quebec. Chapter XVII Down the Mighty St. Lawrence "We ain't out er the wood by no means," said Jim, when the canoe had shot past the city and had lost the lights behind a promontory of the Isle of Orleans, "cos there's the journey back. Judge thinks as we'd best make down stream for the sea, and cut out to Halifax or some other place, wherever our chaps may be. There's talk of an expedition to Louisbourg, and, of course, that's somewheres at the mouth of the river. Now, ef it was me alone----" "You'd make up stream, or even enter the Richelieu," burst in Mr. Mainwaring, "and for the simple reason that you have never even seen the ocean, nor even a big ship. You are at home in the forest, and feel that you could more surely reach friends in that way." "Thet's the case, Judge, in a nutshell." "But I happen to know that the forests south of this are swarming with Indians. We had the utmost difficulty in making to the north, and we have to remember that the escape of the prisoner will within a couple of days be associated with the disappearance of the band of Hurons. That will rouse the French, and they will send urgent messages down to the neighbourhood of Ticonderoga. No, my friends, I have good reason to know that Frontenac is almost deserted at this moment, so that we might escape that way. Even then there would be a very long strip of forest to traverse, and many enemies in it. The mouth of the river is our easiest way, for once clear of the neighbourhood and safe on a suitable vessel, no one can catch us. And French vessels down the stream will be deceived by our hoisting a French flag, while the mouth itself is patrolled by our fleet."