Happily for Rene de Veaux, this counsel had prevailed, and they had gone on up the stream.
It was while on their return from the bayou that they had caught sight of the two boys just leaving the lagoon, and that Cat-sha had uttered his war-cry with such startling effect.
Even at the distance they were, both he and Chitta had seen the Flamingo Feather braided in Has-se's hair, and had also recognized the peculiar costume worn by him whom they knew as the son of the great white chief.
Faster and faster flew the two canoes in their race of life or death down the narrow stream.

That of the two boys was the lighter, but the other, impelled by the powerful strokes of the gigantic Cat-sha, kept pace with it from the outset, and at length began slowly to gain upon it.

Foot by foot, closer and closer, it came, and as the labored breath of the panting boys came shorter and quicker, while the perspiration rolled in great beads from their faces, it seemed as though they were moving at a snail's pace, and they knew that the unequal struggle could not last much longer.
Suddenly Has-se paused from his labor for an instant, and placing a hand to his mouth, uttered a long, tremulous cry, so wild and shrill that it roused the forest echoes for miles around.
He had hardly resumed his paddle, after a quick backward glance that showed the other canoe to be fearfully near them, when his cry was answered by one precisely similar, uttered only a short distance ahead of them.
In another minute an arrow from behind whizzed so close to Has-se's head that it cut the red feather from his hair, and passing on, it buried itself in Rene's shoulder.

At the same instant a canoe filled with Micco's warriors appeared around a point ahead of them, and the two hunted and exhausted boys, seeing it, knew they were saved..