But Harry's leap from the stern of the boat, just as she crashed, threw the canoe off sufficiently to prevent its entire demolition, so, though the frail craft grazed the sharp edge of the rock with the speed of an express train, crushing in its upper part, it was still seaworthy. Roger noted that the Indian had not reached a footing on the spur, but was hanging by a hand-hold to a ledge which it would be almost impossible to climb. The thought passed through Roger's mind that Rivers would blame himself for having let him go, in the event of anything happening, but there was little time for speculation. From the bow he could see the dangers that were before him, but not being in the stern, the canoe was hard to paddle, and almost as in a desperate nightmare, he paddled and swerved and dodged rocks that sprang at him out of the water as though they were alive. Though his heart was in his mouth, and he expected every moment to be his last, the training of the past year stood him in good stead, and his eye never wavered nor did his hand become unsteady until, five minutes later, he reached in safety the gravel flat below the last rapid. There he held the boat to regain his breath, and found time to wonder whether Harry had managed to climb on the spur, and if he had, how the party would be able to release him. But scarcely had this question formulated itself in his mind than, close by the canoe, two hands thrust themselves out of the water, followed by a shock of coarse black hair, and with one side of his head bleeding profusely from a scalp wound he had received on his way down the rapid, the Indian made his way to the boat. Roger helped him in over the stern and they paddled to the shore. "Heap fine," he commented, "thought you gone sure, that time." "You were politer than I was," replied the boy, laughing with a catch in his voice, "I was too busy even to think of you till I got down here." He went on laughing, but harshly and with a curious clang in the tones. The Indian looked up sharply. "Stop," he said, "you no laugh." Roger, brought to a pause by the abrupt command, found he was choking over his laugh, and that his nerves were badly shaken. He felt a wild desire to laugh and cry alternately, but he gulped down a few times, straightened up and looked Harry squarely in the eye. "I'm all right now," he said. The Indian looked back over the rapid down which they had just come, and shook his head. "Well, we got through any way," commented Roger. "Yes," answered Harry slowly, "but we heap near not get through." "Oh, well," replied the boy with all the recklessness of youth concerning a danger which is past and over, "a miss is as good as a mile, any way." "So," replied the Indian, "but when it is my scalp," pointing to his head, "I like mile, every time."