"Do you recall any shelter farther on, Tayoga?" asked the hunter.

"The overhanging bank and the big hollow in the stone," replied the
Onondaga. "On the left! Don't you remember?"

"Now I do, Tayoga, but I didn't know it was near. Do you think we can
make it before that sky over our heads splits wide open?"

"It will be a race," replied the young Iroquois, "but we three are
strong, and we are skilled in the use of the paddle."

"Then we'll bend to it," said Willet. And they did. The canoe shot
forward at amazing speed over the surface of the river, inky save when
the lightning flashed upon it. Robert paddled as he had never paddled
before, his muscles straining and the perspiration standing out on his
face. He was thoroughly inured to forest life, but he knew that even the
scouts and Indians fled for shelter from the great wilderness
hurricanes.

There was every evidence that the storm would be of uncommon violence.
The moan of the wind rose to a shriek and they heard the crash of
breaking boughs and falling trees in the forest. The river, whipped
continually by the gusts, was broken with waves upon which the canoe
rocked with such force that the three, expert though they were, were
compelled to use all their skill, every moment, to keep it from being
overturned. If it had not been for the rapid and vivid strokes of
lightning under which the waters turned blood red their vessel would
have crashed more than once upon the rocks, leaving them to swim for
life.