The miner having made his reply, turned on his heel, still smoking his pipe, and coolly walked away, while Tim O'Rooney gazed after him in amazement. The boys were amused spectators of the scene, and Elwood now called out.

"Come, Tim, don't wait! We shall meet somebody else before long; and as you have just had a good smoking spell, you can certainly wait a while."

"Yes," added Howard, "no good can come of waiting; so jump in and let's be off."

The Irishman obeyed like a child which hardly understood what was required of it, and taking his seat said never a word.

"Let me alternate with you for a while," said Howard to his cousin, "you have worked quite a while with the paddle."

"I am not tired, but if you are eager to try your skill I won't object."

The boys changed places, and while Howard gave his exclusive attention to the management of the canoe, Elwood devoid himself to consoling Tim O'Rooney in the most serio-comic manner.

"Bear up a little longer, my good fellow. There's plenty of tobacco in the country, and there must be some that is waiting expressly for you."

"Where bees the same?"

"Of course we are to find that out; and I haven't the least doubt but the way will appear."

"Elwood," sighed Tim, "'spose by towken of the severe suffering that meself is undergoing I should lose me intellect——"

"I don't think there's any danger."

"And why not?" demanded the Irishman, in assumed fierceness.

"For the good reason that you haven't any to lose."

Tim bowed his head in graceful acknowledgment.

"But suppose I does run mad for all that?"

"I can easily dispose of you?"

"Afther what shtyle?"

"A madman is always a dangerous person in the community, and the moment I see any signs of your malady all I have to do is to shoot you through the head."

"Do yez obsarve any signs at presint?"

"You needn't ask the question, for the moment it breaks out the report of the gun and the crash of the bullet will give you a hint of the trouble."

Tim laughed.

"Yez are a bright child, as me mother used to obsarve whin I'd wash me face in her buttermilk and smiled through the windy at her. If ye continues to grow in your intellect yez may come to be a man that I won't be ashamed to addriss and take by the hand when I maats yez in the straats."

"I hope I shall," laughed Elwood, "the prize that you hold out is enough to make any boy work as he never did before. I hope you will not wish to withdraw your offer."

"Niver a faar—niver a faar, as Bridget Mughalligan said, when I asked her if she'd be kind enough to remimber me for a few days."

"Tim," added Elwood, after a moment's silence, "we are out of the woods."

"What do yez maan by that?"

"We can see signs of the presence of white men all around us, and we have nothing further to fear from Indians."

At this point Howard called the attention of his companion to a large canoe which was coming around a curve in the river. It contained nearly a dozen men, and was the largest boat of the kind which they had ever seen, and savored also of a civilized rather than a savage architect.

"............