"Well, then, gentlemen," Mr Richards began, taking a look round the company as if he wanted to find some individual upon whom to fix his eye, "you must know that I met with this adventure in '25, when I was a smart spry young fellow of nine-and-twenty. I was trapping beavers at the time, in company with my friend Job Potter, near the head-waters of the Missouri; and as we knew that the Blackfoot Indians were on the war-path, and that we should meet with but scant mercy if we fell into their hands, we just set our beaver-traps at night, visited them at dawn, and remained concealed in the woods during the day. "Early one morning Job and I were paddling up stream in our canoe, on our way to examine the traps, when of a sudden we heard a noise as though a herd of buffaloes were galloping towards us; and the next minute a number of Red-skins in their war-paint came rushing along either bank of the river--a couple of hundred of them at the least. "We turned the head of the canoe like lightning and paddled down stream as hard as we could paddle, but the Indians sent a flight of arrows after us and killed poor Job Potter, who in his fall upset the canoe. By a miracle, I only received two slight flesh-wounds; and when I found myself in the river I dived like a duck in order to escape the second shower. Now some thirty yards lower down the stream was a small island, and when we paddled past it I had noticed that against the upper part a sort of raft of drift-timber had lodged. This raft, I must explain, was formed of the trunks of several trees, large and small, covered over with smaller and broken wood to the depth of five or six feet. "In my extremity I happily remembered this raft, and I saw in it my only chance of eluding my pursuers. Rising for one second to the surface in order to make sure of its position, I dived again and swam under water until I found myself directly beneath the raft. I then--not without considerable difficulty--managed to force my head and shoulders between the trunks of trees, so that the upper portion of my body was well above water, and at the same time completely hidden from view by the broken wood on the top of the raft. "Hardly had I fixed myself in this position when the Indians arrived opposite my place of refuge, and several swam off to the island and searched for me amongst the brushwood; one or two actually got on the raft. "Gentlemen, I remained in that terrible position for eleven mortal hours!--in fact, until the Red-skins took their departure, which was not before nightfall. As soon as I was certain that they were gone I dived from under the raft and swam some distance down the river, and there landing, made my way to Fort Jefferson. When I arrived there, after two days' tramp, I found that my hair had turned quite grey; and I can assure you, that, if I live to be a hundred, I shall Dever forget the agony of suspense I suffered when fixed up between those trees."