“And yet you conned the canoe; you told him how to head and how to sheer.”

“Human frailty, master mariner; that was a little of white-skin natur’.  Now, had the Sarpent, yonder, been in the boat, not a word would he have spoken or thought would he have given to the public.  An Indian knows how to hold his tongue; but we white folk fancy we are always wiser than our fellows.  I’m curing myself fast of the weakness, but it needs time to root up the tree that has been growing more than thirty years.”

“I think little of this affair, sir; nothing at all to speak my mind freely.  It’s a mere wash of spray to shooting London Bridge which is done every day by hundreds of persons, and often by the most delicate ladies in the land.  The king’s majesty has shot the bridge in his royal person.”

“Well, I want no delicate ladies or king’s majesties (God bless ’em!) in the canoe, in going over these falls; for a boat’s breadth, either way, may make a drowning matter of it.  Eau-douce, we shall have to carry the Sergeant’s brother over Niagara yet, to show him what may be done in a frontier.”

“The devil!  Master Pathfinder, you must be joking now!  Surely it is not possible for a bark canoe to go over that mighty cataract?”

“You never were more mistaken, Master Cap, in your life.  Nothing is easier and many is the canoe I have seen go over it with my own eyes; and if we both live I hope to satisfy you that the feat can be done.  For my part, I think the largest ship that ever sailed on the ocean might be carried over, could she once get into the rapids.”

Cap did not perceive the wink which Pathfinder exchanged with Eau-douce, and he remained silent for some time; for, sooth to say, he had never suspected the possibility of going down Niagara, feasible as the thing must appear to every one on a second thought, the real difficulty existing in going up it.

By this time the party had reached the place where Jasper had left his own canoe, concealed in the bushes, and they all re-embarked; Cap, Jasper, and his niece in one boat and Pathfinder, Arrowhead, and the wife of the latter in the other.  The Mohican had already passed down the banks of the river by land, looking cautiously and with the skill of his people for the signs of an enemy.

The cheek of Mabel did not recover all its bloom until the canoe was again in the current, down which it floated swiftly, occasionally impelled by the paddle of Jasper.  She witnessed the descent of the falls with a degree of terror which had rendered her mute; but her fright had not been so great as to prevent admiration of the steadiness of the youth who directed the movement from blending with the passing terror.  In truth, one much less sensitive might have had her feelings awakened by the cool and gallant air with which Eau-douce had accomplished this clever exploit.  He had stood firmly erect, notwithstanding the plunge;