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.
"That incessant flare makes me shiver," said Robert.

"It seems every time that I'm going to be struck by it, but I'm glad it comes, because without it we'd never see our way on the river." "Manitou sends the good and evil together," said Tayoga gravely.
"Anyhow," said Willet, "I hope we'll get to our shelter before the rain comes.