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The Mohicans boldly sent back the intimidating yell of their enemies, who raised a shout of savage triumph at the fall of Gamut. The flash of rifles was then quick and close between them, but either party was too well skilled to leave even a limb exposed to the hostile aim. Duncan listened with intense anxiety for the strokes of the paddle, believing that flight was now their only refuge.

That the Diamond Idol should have granted the prayers of such a one he did not as yet imagine, he hated him merely for his presumptuousness in approaching the shrine at all, for approaching it before him whose cause was righteous, for many an old past wrong, but most of all for the expression of his face and the general look of the man as he has swept by in his canoe with his double paddle going in the moonlight.

He said afterward that he could have turned the boat right side up again with just his nose, without using either his paddle or his arms, if only his nose had been a little bigger, and though he meant this for a joke, the twins believed that he really could do it. The moment he was right side up again, Kesshoo gave chase once more to the bladder.

As the sun's lower limb dipped on the gilded edge of the sea Jack ceased working, threw down his paddle, and called a halt. "There!" he cried, heaving a deep, long-drawn sigh; "we've put a considerable breadth of water between us and these black rascals, so now we'll have a hearty supper and a sound sleep." "Hear, hear!" cried Peterkin. "Nobly spoken, Jack! Hand me a drop of water, Ralph.

I perceived a large hole in the stern of the canoe, now almost level with the surface of the lake, through which the water gushed with every stroke of the paddle. The fore-part appearing free from injury, I immediately inverted my position, a movement necessarily effected with much difficulty in so small a craft; and having thus placed myself, the stern was consequently raised a little higher.

But by the time they were well moving the first of the canoes was very near, and their occupants started their savage yelling again and began to paddle with all their might, till, seeing that the boats were leaving them behind, they dropped their paddles and seized their bows, to let fly a shower of arrows. At this the captain gave the word, and a little volley was fired, followed by another.

A fierce wind shook the little craft as if a hand had clutched it. Bet kept the bow of the boat head-on to the heavy rollers that threatened to capsize it. The quiet river had suddenly become a regular sea, choppy and vicious, and Bet strained at the paddle, her face white and tense. Kit crouched in the bottom of the boat. She was anxious to help but did not know what to do.

It rained as heavily as ever, but the wind now came in sudden claps and capfuls, not without danger to a boat so badly ballasted as ours; and we crept over the river in the darkness, trailing one paddle in the water like a wounded duck, and passed ever and again by huge, illuminated steamers running many knots, and heralding their approach by strains of music.

The Indians pass from rock to rock by leaping, wading, or swimming, and, by means of a hawser, haul the boat through the rushing water from one resting-point to another, the steersman keeping his seat, and sometimes lashed to it striving with his large paddle to guide in some degree her course.

And with this, the paddle still in his hand, and his knees and feet nearly sentient in their providence of uses, the sailor threw himself upon the low gunwale, and let it glide through his palms till he could see the man at the helm.