ough sides and the canoe
sailed like a leaf into the first smooth dip. Came the vision of a
distant shore sliding by, and the lower reach with a ferry steamer
halfway across, and Belding felt the canoe lift and quiver, while a
green wave flung its white crest in his face. He came through rather
than over it, and just below caught a glimpse of one of those dreaded
cellars that hid themselves in this tumult. Here, at all costs, he
must keep straight.

The canoe, with no way on, swooped giddily into the great, emerald pit.
There was a fleeting sensation of smooth, glittering, watery walls,
till he was flung on and up into the backward foaming crest, and with a
desperate effort wrenched the slim bow so that it took the rise head
on. An instant followed in which the sky was blotted out, while on
each side rose pyramids of bubbling foam that seemed to meet over his
head, but between which he could see light and distance. The canoe,
half full of water, was plucked onward, while Belding drew a long
breath and searched the chaos in front of him.

Fifty yards down, opened a lane of green that curved beside and between
two cellars, each deeper than the last. He knew instantly that he
could not survive these, and, with every ounce of his strength, drove
across the broken river to the head of the chute. Making it in the
nick of time, he plunged in, with the water sucking at his thighs, and
the sinews in his arms burning like fire. There followed a swift
descent through cellars of dwindling depth, till he floated into the
long, spume-flecked swells at the foot of the decline, where the canoe
drifted sluggishly, full nearly to the gunwale. And here Belding
leaned forward with his hands on her curved thwart, and pumped great
gulps of air into his empty lungs. Presently he stared around. He was
below the works of which he had seen nothing, and just opposite Clark's
big house, whose roof lifted on the hill side a mile away. He had
dared the rapids and come through safely, but Clark, he reflected, was
engulfed.

Luncheon that day at the big house had been a silent affair, after
which the three men went out on the terrace and examined the panorama
that spread to the south. It was suggestive and inspiring. They had
been voiceless for some time, when Clark moved restlessly.

"Shall we talk here, or go back to the office?"

"This is good enough for me," said Ardswell; "are you ready for
business?"

"Certainly."

"And m