lt
his pole dip into empty water, flung it in and grabbed his paddle, for
the craft shot forward suddenly with the swing of the eddy towards the
fall. He did not know whether the stream would sweep them under it,
but he was not desirous of affording it the opportunity. For perhaps a
minute they exerted themselves furiously, gasping as they strained
aching arms and backs, and meanwhile, in spite of them, beneath the
towering fall of rock, the canoe slid on toward the fall. It also drew
a little nearer to the middle of the pool, where there was a curious
bevelled hollow, round which the white foam spun. It seemed to Nasmyth
that the stream went bodily down.

"Paddle," said Mattawa hoarsely. "Heave her clear of it."

They drove furiously between the white-streaked shoot of the fall and
that horribly suggestive whirling; then, as they went back towards the
outrush from the pool, they made another desperate, gasping effort.
For several moments it seemed that they must be swept back again, and
then they gained a little, and, with a few more strokes, reached the
edge of the rapid. They let the canoe drive down the rapid while the
boulders flashed by them, for there was the same desire in all of
them, and that was to get as far as possible away from that horrible
pool. At last Mattawa, standing up forward, poled the canoe in where a
deep ravine rent the dark rock's side, and the party went ashore, wet
and gasping. Wheeler looked back up the gorge and solemnly shook his
head.

"If you want to see any more of it, you've got to do it alone. I've
had enough," he declared. "A man who runs a pulp-mill has no use for
paddling under that kind of fall. I'm not going back again."

Mattawa and Gordon set the tent up in the hollow of the ravine, while
Wheeler hewed off spruce branches with which to make the beds; but
Nasmyth did nothing to assist any of them. Thinking hard, he sat on a
boulder, with his unlighted pipe in his hand. The throbbing roar of
water rang about him; and it was then that the great project crept
into his mind. It was rapidly growing dark in the bottom of the great
rift, but he could still see the dim white flashing of the fall and
the vast wall of rock and rugged hillside that ran up in shadowy
grandeur, high above his head, and as he gazed at it all he felt his
heart throb fast. He was conscious of a curious thrill as he watched
and listened to that clash of stupendous forces. The river had spent
countless ages