Dick did not try to answer. He needed all his breath to carry him along; but, if he had spoken, it would have been to scorn indignantly the suggestion that he leave his chum behind, and look out for himself. Dick was not that kind of boy; and if need be he would stand by Roger, fighting to the end. There was the swift-running river just beside them. Dick wished from the bottom of his heart that they could in some way make use of it in order to give their pursuers the slip; yet he could not decide how it could be accomplished. If they jumped in, and attempted to swim across, there were undoubtedly among the half-naked braves many who could make faster progress, unhampered as they would be with clothes. Oh! if only one of the boats would shoot into view, manned by a couple of the brave fellows whose guns would soon work havoc among the natives and put them to flight! Dick saw no chance of obtaining help from that quarter. The ground underfoot was now slippery, and he remembered that they had passed over a place where the earth seemed spongy. He could only see one hope left. This was for them to seek refuge behind trees, and try to hold the enemy at bay long enough to enable their friends to arrive on the spot. And, since the Indians might rush them despite their threatening guns, this seemed almost like a forlorn hope. CHAPTER XXXI THE END OF THE LONG TRAIL IT was just at that critical moment that something wholly unexpected happened. As long as they lived Dick and Roger believed that the Providence that had so long watched over their fortunes, seeing their terrible distress, had come to the rescue. They heard a sudden sound that bewildered them at first. It was a horrible sucking noise, and both lads actually felt the ground quivering under their feet. Instinctively they came to a pause, as the yells back of them changed to cries of great fear, some of which seemed to be half-muffled. There was, accompanying these sounds, a strange splashing, and the crash of trees going down. As the boys whirled around, stunned by all these remarkable sounds, they looked upon one of the most terrifying spectacles that had ever come before them. A large section of the bank of the river, where they had found it so wet in passing, had suddenly let go while the Indians were crossing it, and, together with a number of trees, had slipped into the deep river. Fully half of the Flat Head Indians went with the landslide, together with both of the renegades. [Illustration: "FULLY HALF OF THE FLAT HEAD INDIANS WENT WITH THE LANDSLIDE"] Dick plainly discovered Lascelles throwing up his arms in an agony of fear, as he found himself being dragged along, with those tons and tons of earth, into a watery grave. Then a great tree smashed down directly over him and that was the last that human eyes ever saw of the French trader.