At dusk they were again afloat on the river and, all three using the paddles, they sent the canoe forward with great speed. But it soon became apparent that Tayoga's prediction would be justified. Clouds trailed up from the southwest and obscured all the heavens. A wind arose and it was heavy and damp upon their faces. The water seemed black as ink. Low thunder far away began to mutter. The wilderness became uncanny and lonely. All save forest rovers would have been appalled, and of these three one at least felt that the night was black and sinister. Robert looked intently at the forest on either shore, rising now like solid black walls, but his eyes, unable to penetrate them, found nothing there. Then the lightning flamed in the west, and for a moment the surface of the river was in a blaze. "What do you think of it, Tayoga?" asked Willet, anxiety showing in his tone, "Ought we to make a landing now?" "Not yet," replied the Onondaga. "The storm merely growls and threatens at present. It will not strike for perhaps an hour." "But when it does strike it's going to hit a mighty blow unless all signs fail. I've seen 'em gather before, and this is going to be a king of storms! Hear that thunder now! It doesn't growl any more, but goes off like the cracking of big cannon." "But it's still far in the west," persisted Tayoga, as the three bent over their paddles. The forest, however, was groaning with the wind, and little waves rose on the river. Now the lightning flared again and again, so fierce and bright that Robert, despite his control of himself, instinctively recoiled from it as from the stroke of a saber. "Do you recall any shelter farther on, Tayoga?" asked the hunter. "The overhanging bank and the big hollow in the stone," replied the Onondaga. "On the left! Don't you remember?" "Now I do, Tayoga, but I didn't know it was near. Do you think we can make it before that sky over our heads splits wide open?" "It will be a race," replied the young Iroquois, "but we three are strong, and we are skilled in the use of the paddle." "Then we'll bend to it," said Willet. And they did. The canoe shot forward at amazing speed over the surface of the river, inky save when the lightning flashed upon it. Robert paddled as he had never paddled before, his muscles straining and the perspiration standing out on his face. He was thoroughly inured to forest life, but he knew that even the scouts and Indians fled for shelter from the great wilderness hurricanes.