The waters were so low that this course, which she had made once before with her friend Tekewani the Blackfeet chief, had perils not met on that desperate journey.

Her canoe struck a rock slantwise, shuddered and swung round, but by a dexterous stroke she freed the frail craft.

It righted and plunged forward again into fresh death-traps.
It was these new dangers which had made Tekewani try to warn her from the shore--he and the dozen braves with him: but it was characteristic of his race that, after the first warning, when she must play out the game to the bitter end, he made no further attempt to stop her.

The Indians ran down the river-bank, however, with eyes intent on her headlong progress, grunting approval as she plunged safely from danger to danger.
Osterhaut and Jowett became silent, too, and, like the Indians, ran as fast as they could, over fences, through the trees, stumbling and occasionally cursing, but watching with fascinated eyes this adventuress of the North, taking chances which not one coureur-de-bois or river-driver in a thousand would take, with a five thousand-dollar prize as the lure.

Why should she do it?
"Women folks are sick darn fools when they git goin'," gasped Osterhaut as he ran.