s now. No escape."

Jim looked at it with a sneer of set teeth.

"We'll show you," he yelled. "You can't beat us, curse you!"

"Draw in the oars," he commanded, "into the bows; use the poles."

It was almost upon us. The stern began to lift upwards.

"Stand by to repel boarders." These were the last words we could hear.
Then we were swallowed up in a tumult of roaring, foaming water, whirled
downward like a straw in the furious onset of the flood.

By throwing all the weight to the bow we had kept from being swamped.
Our high, strong sides saved us for the moment. If anything could stand
the fury of that charge "The Captain" could. Powerful, braced like an
ironclad, unsinkable.

We rose out of the jaws into the back of the dragon, and were surrounded
by a chaos of rushing drift and some big logs and timber.

This mass held the waves down, and our powerful little craft, wedged in
for the moment, was carried along at bewildering speed. It was like
going down a cataract.

Then came a veritable battle of the logs. They tried to ram our boat. We
fought them off with poles as best we could. Occasionally we received a
blow that jarred "The Captain" from stem to stern.

One log bent a board back by a heavy, glancing blow. In a minute I had
it braced back to its old place. Without a second's cessation we fought
desperately but not wildly.

It was like a prize fighter tearing into a powerful opponent with
flying, flaying fists to forestall a knockout. The next moment a jam of
logs threatened to overwhelm us. It seemed viciously determined to
thrust us against the wall of the canyon.

Something had to be done immediately. Juarez was the man. Before we
could say a word, yea or nay, he leapt from the boat and on to the back
of the jam. Prying with his pole against the key log of the combination
he broke it and the freed logs swept down the current.

Nothing but his marvelous quickness and Indian litheness saved him. Just
as it broke he sprang, with the nimbleness of a panther from the log
that swirled back under the impulse of his leap, to the boat.

CHAPTER XXX

THE GREAT GORGE--THE END

"FINE boy, Juarez," rang out Jim's voice. "We'll beat this roaring devil
yet."

No sooner had Jim spoken than our chance came. A change had taken place
in the situation, as there was an opportunity to land on the west shore,
as the canyon had ended and there was a break between it and the canyon
following.

If we did