All went well until the canoe had passed beyond the reef.
The two now followed the stream down to the ocean, finding that it emptied into a bay not over a mile from the point upon the beach at which the canoe had been thrown the night before.
She was alone, and they had left a canoe in which lay a paddle!
The leading canoe, in the bow of which he stood, was yet a hundred yards behind the fleeing Meriem when she ran the point of her craft beneath the overhanging trees on the shore of safety.
"Well, this isn't so bad," observed Ned, as he made himself comfortable in his
canoe. "How about it, Tom?"
Shove in the
canoe nigher to the land, Uncas; this sand will take a stamp as easily as the butter of the Jarmans on the Mohawk.
Should a surge throw the
canoe upon its side and endanger its overturn, those to windward lean over the upper gunwale, thrust their paddles deep into the wave, apparently catch the water and force it under the
canoe, and by this action not merely regain III an equilibrium, but give their bark a vigorous impulse forward.
Plenty fella kanaka we get 'm
canoe, plenty fella
canoe, we go catch 'm that fella ship.
Suppose 'm you take 'm me along
canoe, washee-washee, me give 'm you fella boy two stick tobacco."
Well, all at once here comes a
canoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high like a duck.
The light suddenly changed its direction, and a long and slightly built boat hove up out of the gloom, while the red glare fell on the weather-beaten features of the Leather-Stocking, whose tall person was seen erect in the frail vessel, wielding, with the grace of an experienced boatman, a long fishing-spear, which he held by its centre, first dropping one end and then the other into the water, to aid in propelling the little
canoe of bark, we will not say through, but over, the water.
When a stripling, he had made one of the
canoe force that attacked the sandalwood-cutter that had been even smaller than the Arangi.