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The quick-sighted old man saw the action, and, as the paddle descended, an upward stroke from his own heavy weapon sent it flying in fragments in the air, while a rapid and returning blow fell upon the head of the paddler, and prostrated him at length in the canoe. The opportunity afforded by this diversion, momentary as it was, was not lost upon Desborough.
"They can't do us any harm," he said, and brought the glasses to bear on the canoe. "The chap appears to be in a stew about something, from the way he glances over his shoulder." They sailed down towards the lonely paddler, who was soon alongside thanks to an extraordinary agility. He appeared to be greatly pleased at the meeting, grinned continuously, and at once prepared to get aboard the Okapi.
Immediately the foremost white man threw up his rifle and shot the paddler dead; and a second later one of his companions coming up, killed in like fashion the Indian in the bow of the canoe.
For a time after the boats parted the crew of the Jaybird said very little as they pursued their way down-stream. The accident to the Mary Ann made them all thoughtful, and Rob was very careful in his position as bow paddler for the remaining boat. As the craft was pretty well loaded, Alex also was cautious.
The skilly pilot and the lusty paddler slacked not 40 miles we had come that day and when at last some 49, nearly 50, paddled miles brought us stiff and weary to the landing it was only to learn that the steamer, notwithstanding bargain set and agreed on, had gone south two days before.
Cuthbert immediately remembered that he had seen the lone paddler turn a look that was a mingling of surprise and displeasure upon Owen when the canoes passed in midstream, and his former thought that these two had met before, and that the husky lad might even have had to do with the mournful black eye of the aborigine, came back with added force just now; still, he was not the one to ask questions, and unless the other chose to take his new friends fully into his confidence, whatever the mystery that lay in his past must always remain so.
The native paddler, after he has used the light Canadian paddle, prefers it to the best native make. My own paddlers lost or broke all of their own paddles so as to get the North American ones, which they marked with their initials and used most carefully. To each canoe it would be well to have two copper air tanks, one fore, one aft, a hand-hole in each with a water-tight screw cover on hatch.
He was crouched on one knee in the middle, and the canoe careened over with his weight, so that the gunwale was only an inch or two above the surface. He was evidently an expert paddler, swinging the craft round, this way and that, without ever taking the paddle out of the water. Two other canoes were hauled up near the spring-board; Carroll was bending over one of them.
One he who wielded the paddle was a young man, black as soot, with a shaggy head of frizzled wool, and wild, suspicious eyes. The other, who appeared to be urging the other to more speed, was an old man, whose head was covered by an Arab fez. "Peace be with you," said Mr. Hume, in Arab. "And with you, also," replied the old man, in a thin voice. "Haste, my son!" this to the paddler.
There being rapids about every half-mile on the Vezere, and the current in places being very strong, I realized that no paddler would be able to get up the stream without help, and so I induced my landlord to accompany me and to bring a pole.
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