And when he finally stood up where the water was shallow, and dragged the boat along, Bob, in his eagerness, waded half-way to his knees. What he saw when he looked over the edge of the boat thrilled him. At first he thought Kate must have met with some serious accident and was lying dead. Then he saw her eyes were open, and that a bandage covered her mouth. Bob snatched his sister up in his arms without a second's delay, for Sandy was too exhausted after his swim to do much. The cloth was hastily torn away, and then the sharp edge of Bob's hunting knife cut the leather thongs that bound the girl. "What does all this mean, Kate?" cried Bob, in a voice that quivered with anxiety. "Oh! has anything terrible happened to father and mother, that we find you like this?" She shook her head in the negative. "No, no, nothing has happened to them. It was the Frenchmen who did it!" she explained, though with some difficulty, since the tight bandage had hurt her jaws. Bob and his brother stared at each other. "Do you mean Jacques Larue?" demanded Bob, furiously. "And that other rascal, Henri Lacroix--the brother of the dead Armand?" Sandy added, equally enraged. "Yes," replied the girl, looking as though, now that rescue had come, she would not be sorry to see punished the men who had treated her so badly. "This is a wonderful thing," Bob went on; "tell us how it happened. Where were you when they caught you; and how is it you did not call out?" So Kate explained how she had been taken by surprise, and, before she could say a single word, the hand of Henri Lacroix had stifled all speech. "And they had your fine wampum belt with them, Sandy," she went on, eagerly. "He was wearing it as proudly as if he had saved the life of Pontiac, himself,--Jacques Larue, I mean. And they said that they wanted to pay the Armstrongs back for much that they had suffered." "And, like the base cowards they are," Bob grated between his teeth, "they set a poor helpless girl adrift on the river in a little dugout that might be upset in some cross current, where the fierce eddies swirl!" "And wouldn't I like a chance to draw a bead on either of them right now," said Sandy, looking all around him, as he fondled his faithful old gun, with which he had done so much execution among the game of the forests. "But we should be on the way home!" declared Bob. "Father and Pat must know of this new outrage that we have suffered at the hands of these miserable trappers, who would rather spend their time stealing game that others have caught than to attend to a line of their own traps. If father lets us, Sandy, make sure we will take Pat with us, and start on the trail at once." "To regain those little treasures mother mourns as lost forever; that is just fine," said Kate, eagerly, for she was a backwoods girl, and could recover quickly, after even such a shocking experience.