jection to proceed sometimes
cost him more trouble than overcoming the difficulties of the
navigation.

On reaching the other side of the river, they towed the canoe along an
island, and advanced well enough till they reached the extremity of it,
when the line had to be exchanged for the paddles. In attempting to
clear the point of the island, they were driven with great violence on a
stony shore, and the frail canoe received considerable injury. To land
and unload was the work of a few minutes; but it took a long time to
repair the damage, by fitting in new pieces of bark and re-gumming the
exposed seams. Part of the cargo, also, had to be opened and dried.
This accomplished, they carried the whole across the point which had
damaged them, reloaded and embarked. But it was now seen that it was
not possible to advance farther up that side of the river either by
paddling, hauling with the line, or pushing with poles. There remained
only the alternative, therefore, of returning by the way they had come,
or recrossing the river despite the strength of the current and the fact
that there were several cascades just below them, to get into which
would have involved canoe and men in certain destruction.

"Ve can nevair do it. Monsieur dare not!" whispered Ducette to Reuben,
as they floated for a few moments in an eddy.

Reuben glanced at his leader, who stood up in the canoe surveying the
boiling rapids with a stern, intent gaze, and said quietly, "He'll try."

"Now, my lads, shove out with a will--ho!" said Mackenzie, sitting down.

Lawrence, who was steering, dipped his paddle vigorously, the men
followed suit, the canoe shot into the stream, and in a moment gained
the sheltering eddy below an island, which was shaped somewhat like a
table with a thick centre leg--or a mushroom. There were several such
islands of solid rock in the river. They had been formed apparently by
the action of the current--doubtless also of ice--cutting away their
lower part, and leaving the mushroom-like tops, on which numbers of
geese found a convenient breeding-place. From one to another of these
islands the canoe shot in this way, thus decreasing the width of the
final traverse. They paused a little longer at the last island, then
shot into the stream, and, with a splendid sweep, gained the other side.

But here their case was little improved, for the current was almost as
violent as that from which they had escaped. The craggy ba