Les, in the bow, glanced back nervously. They had shot the rapids several times before, but the thunder of the angry waters still held a menace for the sawyer. Jean Baptiste smiled grimly and motioned briefly for Les to draw in his paddle. Then the little bushman stood up for an instant in the canoe and surveyed the stretch of raging water. Kneeling, now, his paddle flashing in and out so rapidly that one could scarce have kept the tally of its stroking, Jean Baptiste shot the frail fabric into the foam-lashed torrent. The fresh, cool tang of the spray stung his nostrils, and he filled his lungs with the exhilaration of it. A score of times he pitted his strength and the strength of his thin spruce blade against the angry might of the rapids, and a score of times he won. Now he paddled as if the fiend was following him through this hell of waters. Now his paddle hung poised, every nerve and muscle of Jean Baptiste's body tense, his eyes sharp as hawk's eyes. Then the yellow blade flashed down again, and its cunning thrust won the canoe to safety past a dozen lurking dangers. Spray splashed in over the bow. The canoe careened, twisted, poised, darted. It shot by hissing ledges, dipped as it went over miniature falls, swung around perilously with disaster threatening on every side, shot like an arrow down a straight stretch, and came at last to the rock-strewn, snag-guarded foot of the rapids. Here the most dangerous places were passed. The banks of the stream were farther apart, the water ran deeper and more slowly. Jean Baptiste's eyes lit up suddenly, and he nodded to himself, as if in agreement with some inner thought. Yes, this was the place of the testing. II. Jean Baptiste dug his paddle cunningly into the foaming water and darted the bow of his light craft between two big black rocks, against which the water leaped in boiling fury. Instantly the stern of the canoe was caught by the current and swung around sharply, so that the boat lay directly across the course of the stream. It brought up sharply against a snag, there was a slivery crash, Les Walters uttered a yell of terror, and the canoe rolled over, hurling the three of them into the icy, swirling current. For a moment Jean Baptiste shot downstream under the water, like a diving otter, the bursting bubbles crackling in his ears. Then, with a shout, he came to the surface and flung the water from his hair and eyes. He turned quickly and looked back. Into his dark eyes came a sudden look of pain--the hurt look of a dog punished for he knows not what.