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the bow rise gently from the mud of the bank and the stern drift slowly with the
current until it again lodged a few feet farther down-stream.
Jane found that by running back and forth between the bow and stern she could
alternately raise and lower each end of the boat as she shifted her weight from
one end to the other, with the result that each time she leaped to the stern the
canoe moved a few inches farther into the river.
As the success of her plan approached more closely to fruition she became so
wrapped in her efforts that she failed to note the figure of a man standing
beneath a huge tree at the edge of the jungle from which he had just emerged.
He watched her and her labours with a cruel and malicious grin upon his
swarthy countenance.
The boat at last became so nearly free of the retarding mud and of the bank that
Jane felt positive that she could pole it off into deeper water with one of the
paddles which lay in the bottom of the rude craft. With this end in view she
seized upon one of these implements and had just plunged it into the river
bottom close to the shore when her eyes happened to rise to the edge of the
jungle.
As her gaze fell upon the figure of the man a little cry of terror rose to her lips. It
was Rokoff.
He was running toward her now and shouting to her to wait or he would shoot--
though as he was entirely unarmed it was difficult to discover just how he
intended making good his threat.
Jane Clayton knew nothing of the various misfortunes that had befallen the
Russian since she had escaped from his tent, so she believed that his followers
must be close at hand.
However, she had no intention of falling again into the man's clutches. She would
rather die at once than that that should happen to her. Another minute and the
boat would be free.
Once in the current of the river she would be beyond Rokoff's power to stop her,
for there was no other boat upon the shore, and no man, and certainly not the
cowardly Rokoff, would dare to attempt to swim the crocodile-infested water in an
effort to overtake her.
Rokoff, on his part, was bent more upon escape than aught else. He would
gladly have forgone any designs he might have had upon Jane Clayton would she
but permit him to share this means of escape that she had discovered. He would
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