The soldiers in mid-stream threw to their shoulders the rifles which they had kept above their heads, and half a dozen flashes greeted the occupants of the canoe. The balls flew over their heads, and struck the spongy cottonwoods that clothed the bank, with dull thuds. The spy laughed as the bullets whistled over them, and glancing up at the clouds, gradually passing before the queen of night, drove his boat swifter through the placid water, and soon they were out of range--for the moment were safe. Then Mark Morgan lessened his speed, and bade Effie take the paddle. “I must play surgeon awhile,” he said, turning to the major, who, during the flight had laid motionless in the bottom of the boat. “Major, we’ve run the gantlet safely. Your countrymen, I fear, are sorry marksmen. There! don’t speak. I see it irritates your wound.” The next moment the spy had removed the bloody clothing from the Briton’s wound, which he, with some knowledge of surgery, proceeded to examine. He discovered that the half-ounce ball of the trader’s rifle had torn through the soldier’s right side, inflicting one of the ghastliest wounds the young spy had ever seen. The loss of blood had been very great, and now with that and the Herculean task of working the spy’s canoe from its moorings to the Cone, the Briton was as weak as a child. “Your wound has stopped bleeding,” said Mark, looking into Runnion’s face, “and I must say that your case looks bilious. I can’t do much for you now; but when we get to a hiding-place, I’ll do the best I know how with you.” Then Mark proceeded to place a pillow formed from his blanket, under the soldier’s head, and in other little ways tried to make him comfortable. “I know a place where we can hide to-day,” said Mark, gliding to Effie’s side. “It is now far into the night, girl, and, thank fortune, before the dawn we shall reach the spot.” He looked the savage he impersonated, while he sat at Effie’s side, and conversed with her in low whispers. The long heron plumes fluttered over his shoulders; he had the keen eye of the Ottawa, and his body was covered with glittering war-paint. When the sky, at length, began to grow lighter in the east, the canoe increased its speed, under Morgan’s strong strokes, and when the dawn had fairly come the spy guided his little craft up a narrow stream walled by perpendicular rocks. “There’s a cave not far from here, Effie,” he said, as the boat shot along, now and then grating upon rocks which proclaimed the shallowness of the stream they were navigating. “Now that we are safe, Mark, I hope Wayne--” The sentence was broken by the crack of a rifle overhead, the paddle fell from Mark Morgan’s hands, and he sunk down in the bottom of the boat. With a light cry Effie St. Pierre snatched up the rifle that lay at her feet, and glanced upward. Two figures on a projecting rock fifty feet above, commanded her attention.