Free The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four by Louis L’Amour

and turned into the river, with most of the backing being into the current.
    Without bothering to pull the boat in to shore, she climbed out on a low hanging branch and dropped to the deck. Cuyu followed as she made her way to the pilot house.
    “You take us away?” he asked.
    She could see that he was more terrified than ever, now that they had reached their destination. Terrified because, unlike the stretches of forest and glacier, this was a place where Kubelik would have to come on any search for them that he might make. She thought of the difficult job of fighting the river’s current with a reversed engine, of how the ketch would slip sideways even as it moved back, and feared what roots or rocks lurked beneath the black waters of the San Tadeo. Sometime toward morning there would be a tide, and that would make her job much easier, but high tide was hours away and she was sure they didn’t have an hour, let alone hours.
    “I can try,” she mumbled. The thought of the miles of gray, white-capped water frightened her. She had spent many months at sea, but never without her father. She took a deep breath and reached out for the switch that activated the pumps. Nothing happened. She tried again.
    But the moment she touched the console, she heard it. Off in the distance, but not distant enough, was the low
thot-thot
of an auxiliary engine. It could only belong to Kubelik’s schooner. She turned, and through the open hatchway could see a movement through the trees that blocked her view of the river.
    “Quick!” she said to Cuyu. “We must get off the boat and hide.” But the native was already headed across the deck. He jumped for a branch and pulled himself up. Julie, desperate to know the full extent of her troubles, flipped up the cover and glanced into the electrical console. The battery cable had been removed, and the deck boards were scarred where Kubelik had yanked it up through the narrow channel. He had made sure that no one was going to be taking the ketch out of the river, at least not without winching it out of the backwater and upriver against the current. She dropped the cover and ran.
    Back on deck, she saw Cuyu motioning frantically from the bank. She’d started for the branch when a shot rang out.
    The Yahgan fled. The schooner was drawing into the backwater, and standing in the bow, a rifle in his hands, was Pete Kubelik!
    “Cuyu!” Her cry seemed lost in the space between the trees.
“Look out!”
    She saw the Yahgan glance back, and then he left his feet and dove into the brush and in that instant the rifle barked. Did he stumble? Or was he already falling of his own volition?
    The rifle barked again, but she heard no whine of bullet nor was she hit. Cuyu must have still been alive then, and another shot had been sent to finish the job. She heard Kubelik shout, and turned back to the companionway. Dropping down the ladder, she ran for her father’s cabin. Just as she unlatched the door she both heard and felt Kubelik’s schooner bump up alongside the ketch.
    Hanging from leather loops attached to the side of the bunk was George Marrat’s old Mannlicher carbine. Julie jerked it free and grabbed up the leather cartridge wallet that hung with it. Footsteps pounded overhead. She had no time to load and barely time to think. Kubelik was coming down the ladder. As she ducked into the companionway she could see the back of his legs as he descended. She slid through the galley door and threw the lock, although that would hold him only an instant.
    Scrambling onto the mess table and pushing open the skylight, she tossed the rifle through and started to crawl out herself. Behind and beneath her, the door splintered open. She rolled through the hinged skylight as Kubelik roared, charging across the cabin.
    Julie grabbed the carbine and plunged overboard. The icy water hit her like a fist, a cold, solid hammer in her stomach. Down she went, striking out toward the shore but still sinking. Her clothes,