Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/46

28 from a Winchester .30 kicked up the pebbles a few feet in advance of Alan.

He quickened his pace; the next bullet fell closer, while the third actually bit the earth beneath his running feet as he gained the dam. Exasperated, he pulled up, whipped out his pistol and fired without aim. And he noted that the distance between dam and canoe had lessened perceptibly, thanks to the strong current sucking through the spillway.

His shot flew wide, but instinctively his finger closed again upon the trigger, and coincident with the report he saw the paddle in the bow of the canoe snap in twain, its blade falling overboard. Then the Indian fired again, his bullet droning past Alan's ear. As he fired in response Jacob started, dropped his rifle into the lake, clawed at his throat, and crumpled up in the bow of the canoe.

Alan turned and ran along the dam toward two heavy timbers that bridged the spillway.

Then a glance aside brought him up with a thrill of horror: the suck of the overflow had drawn the canoe within a hundred yards of the spillway. The dead Indian in its bow, the living woman helpless in its stern, it swept onward to destruction.

A moment later Alan found himself at the brink of the spillway, staring down into a chasm thirty feet in depth, wherein the cascade broke upon a huddle of jagged boulders.